Are California Solar Installers Accurately Representing Project Economics in Light of Impending Rate Reform Changes?
California residential solar installers may be using a flawed approach to calculating and presenting the economics of solar projects and not even know it. Earlier this year the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) finalized and approved the biggest rate reforms to residential electric rates in a decade. These structural changes to rate design change the value proposition of a solar project, but are not likely being accounted for in the modeling.
Our Utility Rates Database
We constantly receive questions about how we track, update and manage our utility rates database, so I figured it was time for a blog post on the topic. Here’s some of the most frequently asked questions we get asked:
Are You Using Green Button Data Yet?
I was a panelist on a workshop at the Intersolar conference last month on the topic of ‘software tools and techniques to stay competitive in the solar industry’. The audience was mostly made up of residential solar contractors. Before the panel got underway the moderator polled the audience to see how many of them used Green Button Data when analyzing and proposing their projects? Only a few hands in the room went up.
Lots Of Rate Changes To Make Sense Of
It’s a lot of work keeping up with all of the changes utilities make to their rates. Now that we’re tracking utility rates in over 30 states and 100 utility territories, we’re developing a good feel for the frequency at which utilities make changes. In addition to the sheer volume of changes being made, we’re also gaining some interesting insights for the different types of rate changes and the effect they have on customers.
Rate Design Will Be King
Rate design has always been a key factor in determining the economic viability of a customer-side-of the-meter solar project. It’s been right up there in importance with the other commonly thought of factors, like Net Metering, the Federal Investment Tax Credit, installed/panel/soft costs, and the availability of financing. Looking out …