Jun 27, 2021 | News
Back in April, I shared with you what was happening at the Pedernales Electric Cooperative. Its anti-solar policies, approved in December 2020, level a direct blow to both already-installed and future customer-owned solar in its service territory. These your-side-of-the-meter solar policies will transform PEC from being inarguably one of Texas’s most supportive distributed solar proponents to perhaps the most punitive. As the rural electric cooperative that serves more meters than any other U.S. co-op, and with 5,000 solar meters in 24 Texas counties, these anti-solar policies could have a profound effect on other Texas rural electric cooperatives.
A few years ago, I was touting PEC’s forward-thinking distributed solar policies. However, a recent PEC internal cost-of-service study concluded that PEC solar members are, on average, paying 17% less than it costs to provide them with electric service. Cost-of-service studies typically analyze a utility’s total costs to provide service to its customers and to allocate those costs. While cost-of-service studies are usually comprehensive documents, this PEC study is not. It is alarmingly thin on data and methodologies that prove its solar members aren’t paying their fair share. As importantly, nothing in the PEC study quantifies or even considers, the benefits of distributed solar to the cooperative and its members. The resulting proposed rate increases are intended to recapture “lost” revenue from its solar customers.
The proposed rates include new demand charges and time-of-use rates for PEC solar customers. Effective January 1, 2022, all residential solar members will be on time-of-use (TOU) rates. This complex rate structure charges customers more for using energy at certain times of the day and less at other times. And while TOU rates can have a positive effect on reducing customer use, it’s not always possible for everyone to control the timing of their energy use. PEC staff admits that increased bills are the intended purpose of this rate change. Further, for those solar customers, their solar energy production will be devalued resulting in reduced ROI for their solar investment.
The other rate increase is in the demand charges. Effective January 1, 2022, all current AND future solar members will see TWO different demand charges: 1) one based on usage during ERCOT’s Four Coincident Peak (4CP) periods which is the highest energy usage hours for the whole grid peak for each of the four summer months, and 2) one based on monthly peak use. Typically, commercial customers have demand charges. Undoubtedly confusing for residential customers, demand charges can also be notoriously difficult to control.
According to PEC, these new rate structures and demand charges are intended to cover grid costs, yet PEC refuses to apply the same rates to non-solar homeowners who might be either increasing or decreasing their grid use by other methods; i.e., plug-in electric vehicle or high-SEER heat pump. All PEC members drive those costs, not just its solar members.
Adding salt to the wound – a special charge for solar members that is not only unfair, it’s punitive.
Currently, if you’re a PEC member and you want to install solar, it will cost you $650 in upfront fees, as well as a non-refundable $250 application fee. By the way, you’ll pay that $250 fee, even if your request is denied. Live in Austin Energy’s service territory and you’ll only pay $310 for a residential solar permit. Live in Oncor service territory and the cost is $0.
In response to these punitive solar policies, TXSES is part of a coalition of stakeholders including Public Citizen, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, Solar United Neighbors and Jolt, as well as unaffiliated PEC members, working to engage with PEC members and the board and increase awareness about these regressive policies. As a result, PEC scheduled three informative webinars for its members: May 27, June 14 and July 12 in an effort to increase member awareness of the issue. If you live in PEC’s service territory, there’s still one more informational zoom event on July 12. Sign up for the July 12 event. And tell your friends who live in any of PEC’s 24 counties to speak up in support of customer-generated solar.
Howard ‘Scot’ Arey is the Chair of TXSES. Scot is also owner of Solar CenTex, a solar installation company that designs and installs residential, commercial, farm and ranch, and small municipal solar projects.
Apr 23, 2021 | News
By Howard ‘Scot’ Arey
Potential anti-solar policies at the Pedernales Electric Coop (PEC) threaten to derail future distributed solar in PEC’s service territory, the rural electric cooperative that serves more meters than any other U.S. co-op.
With a little less than eight weeks until sine die, May 31, 2021, the Texas legislature is still debating the right policies to remedy February’s massive grid failure from Winter Storm Uri. Yet there is another battle raging below the watchful eyes of energy lobbyists.
The Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) is poised to implement behind-the-meter solar policies that will transform it from being inarguably one of Texas’s most supportive distributed solar proponents to perhaps the most punitive.
How could this have happened so quickly?
Just a few years ago, I wrote an article lauding the PEC’s policy and its positive effects on one of Texas’s fastest growing industries. But a few key leadership changes later, the current PEC team and board is on track to enact policies that degrade the distributed solar value proposition, not just for new solar owners but for homeowners who have already invested in solar to guard against rising electricity prices and to do their part for climate action.
Loaded language in recent policy (“this class [solar] is being heavily subsidized”) with little supporting data swung the PEC pendulum from proponent to adversary of distributed renewable energy. Not lost in this shift: the punitive charges and rate structure were put in place after it installed numerous community solar farms – on its side of the meter and pricing.
Fixed-rate structures for non-interconnected customers are PEC’s answer for most homeowners. But for the small percentage of solar homeowners, PEC will impose the highest-in-state application fee ($650 for a now two-step application) and time-of-use (TOU) rate structures with commercial-like demand charges to approximate solar customer grid use.
As the rural electric cooperative that serves more meters than any other U.S. co-op, PEC’s potential impact is huge. Instead of implementing policies that threaten to derail future solar investments, PEC could be the example of how to build a safe, resilient grid with distributed energy resources in Texas.
We’re in a whole new world.
Whether reducing electric demand with solar, installing the highest-SEER-rated HVAC system, or charging an EV, the only common denominator is that every homeowner is only that – a homeowner. Everyone should be treated equally. If PEC proposed policies represent a better way to send price signals and measure homeowner use of the grid, then it should be just as smart for non-solar homeowners as it is for solar homeowners.
Let’s hope that PEC pauses these rushed policy changes that will sabotage the investment of so many who have already gone solar and those yet to go solar. Penalizing solar homeowners is not good public policy.
Howard ‘Scot’ Arey is the owner of Solar CenTex, a solar installation company that designs and installs residential, commercial, farm and ranch, and small municipal solar projects. He is also Chair of TXSES.
Mar 19, 2021 | News
I thought my first Solar Reflector article would focus on why I returned to TXSES. I felt an urgency to speak out against under-the-radar attacks on solar on the customer side of the meter; how we need to stop policy roadblocks that are under construction in Texas. That alone would have been a worthwhile goal.
And then at our Annual Meeting, I heard the TXSES regional chapters share what has been keeping them busy. I was humbled and impressed with the myriad efforts and innovative projects underway across the state.
What stood out about the chapters’ efforts was not only were they trying to defend net-metering on the customer side of the meter, they were also integrating solar with essential elements of society. Whether workforce development, by bringing the under-represented into our industry, or solarizing food trailers that bring fruits and vegetables to food deserts, these projects benefit not just one individual but communities writ large.
I began to rethink what I want to accomplish as TXSES board chair this year.
Enter The Big Freeze, and although we’re still too close to the calamity to joke about it, I realized then that my focus needed to include more than net-metering for homeowners. Instead, it needs to spotlight the relentless big, bold thinking and synergy happening in our chapters. This is how distributed solar makes our Texas communities a better place for more of us.
The Blanco Vista neighborhood of San Marcos was blanketed with several inches of snow Feb. 15 after a massive winter weather system engulfed Texas, causing widespread power outages across the state. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune
Our grid was tested. Unfortunately, but predictably, politicians were pointing fingers and were quick to assign blame. Despite claims by the Governor that renewables were the culprit, the real story was that the grid-at-large failed on multiple levels.
The current electric grid, that electric network paradigm, has been with us for nearly 150 years. What have we really done to improve it? Nationally? Here in Texas? While we’ve tinkered around the edges with various strategies like smart meters, has the grid changed much with the technology from our solar industry?
Bright examples shine (rooftop aggregation for virtual power plants comes to mind from San Antonio and CPS), but across Texas, the grid network runs pretty much in the same form today as it did more than one hundred years ago. Power flow is unidirectional: from big power plants to your home. We know now that this system is fallible.
Across the TXSES membership community, we have shining examples of resiliency that we must multiply 1000-fold. Bringing solar and storage to our homes, neighborhoods, cities, counties will reinforce and bolster the grid. We can transform it to a better, more modern grid network where the flow of amps is not just plant-to-home but back and forth bidirectionally, vertically and horizontally.
We have the leaders on this board to get after this. Thanks to our recently-awarded Meadows grant, we’re able to pursue those big, bold ideas that can change our energy story. Our talented chapters are taking big ideas and pairing them with local and regional projects that are making a real difference.
This year, let’s all tell the story about how distributed solar plus storage modernized the Texas grid from its century-old paradigm of one-way electricity flow into the most resilient, adaptive electrical mesh-network that makes us the envy in the U.S. and world.
I look forward to your ideas to move forward and not look backward.
i
