The threat of Californoa’s AB1139 could spell trouble for rooftop solar. The recently introduced bill is a major win for utilities, handing them control of renewable energies and eliminating the 20-year net metering guarantee currently afforded to homeowners.
Elias walks through the bill’s problematic implications for Coast News. Read an excerpt below.
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“If politicians wanted to kill rooftop solar energy production in California, they could not find a better vehicle than a proposed new law known as Assembly Bill 1139.
This is a brainchild of Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, previously best known for authoring AB 5, another destructive bill she pushed into law in 2019 only to see her legislative colleagues a year later rescind many of its onerous provisions. AB 5 was despised especially by folks it was supposed to help.
The newest Gonzalez project is – like AB 5 – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Where AB 5 originally required companies using contract workers to convert them to regular employees who could then be unionized, AB 1139 purports to stabilize conditions for California residents installing solar panels atop their homes.
AB 5 caused or threatened to cause an end to the jobs of thousands of Californians, from freelance writers to court reporters to musicians. Similarly, AB 1139 would likely stifle rooftop solar installations around the state, home to about half of all such projects nationally.
Here are four things AB 1139 would do in the name of bettering home-based solar power:
It would end the state’s current policy of requiring electric utilities to ensure that “customer-sited generation continues to grow sustainably.” That’s a massive change in state policy. It would concentrate all renewable energy efforts in the hands of big utilities including California’s largest utility, which has been convicted of corporate crimes as serious as manslaughter.
It would end the current guarantee to homeowners who install solar that net metering will remain stable for 20 years after systems go in. This means the price homeowners get for excess energy they contribute to the general electric grid will drop.
And it calls on the scandal-ridden state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to create new net metering rules within two years to set payments to solar owners for excess power at the level currently paid for wholesale power. That, say solar advocates, would cut payments to homeowners who install solar by about 80 percent.
This is a utility company pipe dream come to life, something for which the electric providers have spent years lobbying the PUC.
Essentially, AB 1139 disincentivizes homeowners who might otherwise want to install solar panels, the cost of which has dropped by about 70 percent over the last 10 years.”