From Seth Mullendore
Renewable Energy World
Impending changes to net metering policies and utility rates could drastically reduce the value of solar bill savings for commercial ratepayers in California. For affordable housing properties, the changes could translate into a 50 percent loss in solar savings.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that, by incorporating energy storage, those losses could be completely reversed — with the potential to deliver significantly greater savings than solar alone.
In a new paper, Solar Risk: How Energy Storage Can Preserve Solar Savings in California Affordable Housing, we explore how these changes could affect affordable housing in the state. The paper walks through an analysis of an actual 50-unit affordable housing property under a rate tariff that would be widely applicable to medium- to larger-sized commercial properties in the San Diego area, including many affordable housing properties. It also looks at the potential role of energy storage minimizing the negative impact of these solar regulatory risks.
This type solar value deflation is a problem that goes beyond California. The current solar landscape is in flux in many states, adding risk and uncertainty to solar investment decisions. It is an unfortunate reality that, as more and more solar comes online, the grid, and how it is paid for, must inevitably evolve to meet the changing dynamics of supply and demand, often in ways that reduce the value proposition for distributed solar systems. This scenario is now being played out in California.