Help Save Net Metering (and your solar job) in California

If you haven't gotten this email from Adam Browning and his Vote Solar Initiative team, I'm reposting here.

Bottom line, net metering in California is going to go away unless we tell our lawmakers to lift the 2.5% net metering cap.

Please. If you're live and work in California, take two minutes to fill out this easy email form. Doing so will send an email to your legislators to tell them that you want to pass AB 510, which will lift the cap to 5%.

If you not only live in California, but also work in the solar industry, then you really need to fill out this form. It also wouldn't hurt to pass this information to all of your co-workers who want to keep the solar industry strong.

Please do your part. The Senate will vote this Thursday, 2/4/10, so don't wait. (UPDATE: THE VOTE IS NOW SET FOR A VOTE ON THURSDAY, 2/11/2009.)

Here's the full email from Adam Browning.

Thanks for your attention.

Friends-

The 2009 California legislative session ended last fall with some important solar business left undone.  State law currently caps the amount of net metered solar systems at 2.5% of utility system peak load--a serious impediment to long-term solar growth.  Without net metering, solar customers won't see their meter roll backwards, and California's growing rooftop solar market grinds to a halt.  AB 560, which would have raised the cap to 5%, made it through the Assembly and several Senate Committees before being derailed by a fight over a tangential licensing provision.  The session ended, painfully, with a cloud hanging over solar's future growth in California.

Well, now is the time to finish the job.  AB 560 has now become AB 510, and it picks up where we left off in the fall: in the Senate.

Can you take action and tell your state Senator to secure California's solar future?

It's time to get this done, already.  Take action now or no complaining later.

LETTER TO SENATORS

As your constituent, I'm writing in support of solar energy.  I am asking you to support AB 510, a bill that would remove a barrier to long term solar growth in the state by raising the current cap net metering in the state to at least 5%.

Net metering is a policy that allows solar system owners to roll back their meters when they are generating more than they use. The policy makes solar systems more economic for owners, and benefits all ratepayers by reducing the amount of peak demand--the most expensive electricity--in the state.  At the same time, impacts on utility revenues are exactly the same as investments in energy conservation or efficiency.  Net metering is currently capped at 2.5% of system peak load in the state.  This artificial barrier to long term growth and green jobs needs to be lifted.

In 2009, AB 560 (Skinner) was intended to raise the cap to 5%, and after 6 months of work, the legislation made it through the Assembly and all the Senate policy committees.  In the final days, it stalled on tangential certification issues, which have since been addressed to the satisfaction of stakeholders.  This year, AB 510 was amended to incorporate the contents of AB 560, and is the vehicle for making this necessary change.

Raising the limit to 5% benefits the state in many ways:

-Schools and government buildings across the state are applying for ARRA stimulus funds to go solar.  That'll save taxpayers money through reduced utility payments.

-Over 5,600 students are currently enrolled in solar training programs across the state.  Let's make sure there's a job for them when they get out.

-Net metering saves everyone money by reducing the need for new peaker plants.

-Government buildings have installed over 51 MW of solar in the state, resulting in nominal savings of a conservatively estimated $270 million in avoided utility payments.  This saves taxpayers money.

-We are facing a climate crisis and a jobs crisis.  Solar can help with both.

-It's time to press on the accelerator, not the brake.

Many thanks for your support for solar, and for helping to pass AB 510.

Adam Browning

The Vote Solar Initiative

300 Brannan Street, Suite 609

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.votesolar.org