Lawmakers to fix solar plan 'glitch'

 

May 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Tim Herdt Ventura County Star, Calif.

State lawmakers are poised to fast-track an emergency bill designed to fix a "glitch" in California's heralded "Million Solar Roofs" program that was supposed to encourage homeowners to install solar energy units but ended up scaring them off.

Since most solar units do not provide all the energy a house needs, the state program requires homeowners who install new units, beginning this year, to purchase their extra electricity through "time of use" contracts that charge different rates depending on the time and day of the week the electricity is used.

Those rates are so high for times of peak demand that, calculating their anticipated costs, many homeowners in Southern California determined they would pay more for energy with a solar roof than they would without. Predictably, they decided against installing solar panels.

Applications for solar energy rebates funded through the solar roof program dropped dramatically in the first quarter this year.

"It was an inadvertent, temporary glitch that was totally unintended," said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys.

Plans developed last week by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders call for quickly amending one of Levine's bills and approving the proposed fix in time for Schwarzenegger to sign it in early June. That would allow the Public Utilities Commission to adopt new regulations at its June 7 meeting.

The change would suspend the "time-of-use" requirement.

Once that step is taken, industry officials said they expect demand for solar panels to immediately pick up -- in time for the busy summer season for installers.

Sue Kately, executive director of the California Solar Industry Association, said she is telling installers to "get those contracts in place and sell those systems" based on the expectation the law and regulations will be changed within the month.

"I'm extremely optimistic," she said.

Levine said the change would make it so that the decision to install solar panels "will pencil out for everybody, giving people the certainty that they're not going to be economically penalized."

Levine, who is chairman of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, noted that experts pored over the proposed law for most of last year, but no one anticipated the problem. At the time, he said, there was insufficient data for anyone to determine what the time-of-use charges would be in specific locations.

"If it had been catchable, someone would have caught it," he said.

The program provides for state rebates of up to 50 percent of the cost of installing solar panels.

"We put this rebate program in place precisely to make solar energy cost-effective," Levine said, "and when we fix this little glitch it will be."