New, Tucson Electric Power home solar customers who use net metering to save on their electric bills would get their savings cut by a $22-a-month average under a new TEP proposal.
The utility asked the Arizona Corporation Commission on Wednesday to approve what it calls "a more equitable price" for electric service, while still offering customers signficant savings for installing solar panels.
This proposal could prove controversial. The Tucson chapter of the Sierra Club is already opposing it.
The commission in 2013 approved a net metering plan for the Phoenix-based Arizona Public Service utility that reduced solar homeowners' savings by only $5 a month. But TEP's new proposal isn't the same as was APS', although it's trying to achieve similar goals, a TEP spokesman said.
The utility says its proposal would reduce but not eliminate subsidies that go to rooftop solar array users at the expense of other utility customers.
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The Sierra Club, however, says TEP's proposal is punitive for solar homeowners and that far from costing the utility money, they're saving it.
The proposal affects net metering, in which homeowners with solar arrays are able to exchange excess solar energy they produce and don't need for free electric power from the utility when they need it. If the ACC approves this proposal, it wouldn't affect customers who already have solar power systems or those who request to connect new solar arrays to TEP's grid by June 1 of this year, the utility said.
A typical residential customer using 900 kilowatt hours a month and who install a six kilowatt solar array would still save more than $80 per month on their average electric bill under its new proposal, TEP says. That would reduce such a homeowner's savings by $22 a month, the utility said in a news release announcing its request to ACC.
"Our proposal will allow the continued expansion of southern Arizona's solar energy resources while preserving safe, reliable and affordable electric service at more equitable prices for all of our customers," said David Hutchens, TEP's president and chief executive officer, in the news release.
TEP's proposal would reduce but not eliminate subsidies in current rates that shift the burden of paying for the region's local electrical system from rooftop solar customers to other customers, the utility said.
These subsidies were effective as short-term incentives for a costly, relatively new technology, but now with solar far more popular and affordable, "we can achiever our renewable energy goals and preserve significant bill savings for solar power users without creating unmanageable cost burdens for our other customers," Hutchens said.
The Sierra Club's Dan Millis, however, says the premise underlying TEP's solar proposal is false.
"They claim rooftop solar customers are costing TEP . . . In fact, the opposite is true," said Millis, program coordinator for the club's Grand Canyon chapter. "Rooftop solar customers are investing millions in TEP infrastructure. They build power plants on their roofs -- they are small power plants, but that's one less power plant that TEP doesn't have to build. It's saving TEP money, every time somebody goes solar."
"We're deeply disappointed in TEP. Tucson expects more from TEP," Millis said in a telephone interview.
In 2013, the ACC approved a net metering plan for Arizona Public Service that added $5 a month to its typical household solar customer's electric bill. The utility had requested what amounted to a $50 per month increase, which drew extensive protests from solar advocates and customers.
But TEP's new proposal is structured differently from APS', TEP spokesman Joe Barrios said.
"The goal here is to propose a new plan that's more equitable for everyone. I'm not familiar with APS' proposal, but are they the same? No, they are not," Barrios said Wednesday. "They speak generally to the same issue. Maybe they are related in that regard."
