Thoughts on Solar

On the heels of the sad announcement of the bankruptcy filing of SunPower - a 39-year-old stalwart of the solar industry - and the loss of 290 jobs in California alone, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) just announced that it will decrease the amount of compensation paid by solar system owners for energy sent back onto the grid!

The CPUC had already slashed the so-called net metering rates with a ruling that took effect a year ago April.  As a result, the payback period for solar installations nearly doubled.  Combined with stubbornly high interest rates and the impact was devastating.  Scores of companies - including a giant like SunPower - closed their doors resulting in thousands of lost jobs.  And for what?  To pad the pockets of the investor-owned utilities like SCE? Outrageous.

But the CPUC isn’t done doing the utilities’ dirty work.  They just finalized a rule change that will slash compensation rates even further!  Starting next year, SCE export compensation will be as low as 3.5¢/kWh!

The only good news - and I’m reaching here because the news is catastrophic - is that for projects that submit interconnection agreements this year, they are insulated from these more draconian compensation rates for nine years.  That means consumers have less than four months to lock in these rates.

Bottom line: if you live in SCE territory and you have been thinking about solar, you owe it to yourself to act now! Give us a call at 626-793-6025, or email us at info@runonsun.solar.

The Washington Post is out today with a disturbing article titled, Where heat waves may cause blackouts, and no surprise, Southern California is one of those places!  The rationale for the headline is straightforward enough: climate change is bringing more consecutive days of heat wave weather, and those extended days of heat cause stress on the electrical grid, including on those transformers you see on power poles in your neighborhood, maybe even in your own backyard.  When overloaded, by both heat and increased demand (from air conditioning, pool pumps, and increasingly EV charging), those transformers can fail, sometimes spectacularly!

SCE is well aware of this issue.  From the article:

The power company Southern California Edison recently warned that climate change will make it so “existing infrastructure will become less efficient, especially inland, resulting in reduced capacity on lines and higher losses in transformers.”

Even if the transformers do not fail, SCE might be required to cut off power during heat wave events, compounding the impact on consumers who now find themselves without AC - or even a fan - during a high heat crisis!

It doesn’t have to be that way!

Adding solar and sufficient storage is a way to thrive during those heat waves knowing that whatever the grid does, your life will pretty much continue as normal.  We are certified installers of Enphase equipment, including their more powerful 5P battery systems.  Get ahead of the curve and give us a call today.  One of these summer days you will be glad that you did!

Once again, Run on Sun has been named to Solar Power World’s Top Solar Contractors list!

As we have in eight of the past ten years, Run on Sun continues to “punch above our weight,” providing quality solutions for residential solar clients.  Looking at the numbers from last year (the 2023 list is based on 2022 installations), Run on Sun went over one megawatt of solar installations!  Not bad for a small shop!

In compiling the data, the folks at Solar Power World also looked at some interesting trends, such as:

• More than 62% of the companies on the list has one or more members who - like Run on Sun Founder & CEO, Jim Jenal - are NABCEP Certified.  (Jim’s been NABCEP certified since 2010!)
  
  
• California is the top state for installations with 24% of all installs done here.  After California are: New York and Texas (both at 13%), followed by Illinois and Florida (12% each)
  
  
• 73% of companies plan to get into home energy management and/or EV-related products
  
  
• REC panels - that we use - were the second most popular choice (accounting for 14% of all installs), behind QCells at 23%.  Interestingly, Panasonic was only 4%.
  
  
• Enphase microinverters were the far and away top choice, accounting for 33% of all installs, followed by SolarEdge at 21%.  Once dominant SMA is down in single digits!  (Lo how the mighty have fallen!)

It is a privilege to be in such fine company, and we look forward to adding to our streak next year!

Some people are simply shameless, and it appears that the powers-that-be at SCE are among them. We just got this charming missive from the division at SCE that is responsible for processing Interconnection Applications:

Subject: Extended NEM Application Processing Timelines

Hello Contractors and Installers,

We are currently experiencing a high volume of new NEM applications. As a result, processing timelines are taking longer than expected. Please note, Interconnection Requests (IRs) may exceed our average processing timelines. Although most applications will be reviewed within 10 business days, some may take up to 20 business days to review.

To help mitigate this volume, we strongly recommend that you submit your application and the required documents in complete form, including all signatures and attachments. Ensuring that your applications are submitted in complete form helps us to minimize the number of touchpoints and reduce the application queue.

We request your cooperation and understanding as we work diligently in decreasing the application volume. Please refer to PowerClerk for the latest status of your application. If you have any additional questions, please send an email to Customer.Generation@sce.com.

Sincerely,

Eduyng Castano
Senior Manager of Customer Generation Programs
Southern California Edison

To deem this outrageous is to be way too kind. Gee, I wonder why there is a high volume of applications? Could it be because the bottom is dropping out of solar economics in SCE territory after the April 14th deadline? Who could have predicted that - apart from pretty much everyone who is paying attention. And how is it that SCE can unilaterally change the requirement for them to process applications? Doesn’t the CPUC have something to say about this?

The existing standard of 10 business days - two weeks on the calendar - was already a joke, but now they are saying that “some” applications could take 20 business days - nearly a month! Oh and to add insult to injury, they also raised the application fee - you know, the money that is supposed to cover application processing - by 25%! Must be nice to be able to jack the price that you are charging, while simultaneously reducing the service provided. Aren’t monopolies swell?

This is getting real folks. In an earlier post - find it here - we stated that we couldn’t guarantee NEM 2.0 for applications submitted after March 31st. But given this revision - and zero clarity on which applications might hit that 20-day limit, we need to push things up. RUN ON SUN WILL NOT GUARANTEE NEM 2.0 FOR ANY APPLICATION SUBMITTED AFTER MARCH 15! (The Ides of March indeed!)

This is a terrible way to run a business, but we have no control over the arbitrary nonsense coming from SCE. Please plan accordingly!

tl;dr - Come Rally with us on June 2, at 10:30 a.m. in Grand Park, DTLA!

As readers of this blog know only too well, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) had proposed - at the urging of the investor-owned utilities (IOUs), that is SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E - a new set of rules for how solar system owners would be compensated for the energy they put back onto the grid.  In a nutshell, that proposal would have pushed the payback period for solar systems to twenty years or more!  In an epic bit of organizing, our trade association - the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA) - kicked up a ruckus that was clearly heard in Sacramento, by getting folks to sign petitions, issue public comments, testify to the CPUC for six hours straight, and two very loud, very colorful rallies in San Francisco and here in LA.  (If you missed that, you can read about the LA rally here.)

Thanks to those efforts, the original proposal was pulled back.  But that didn’t win the fight, as the CPUC is still talking about a Solar Tax that would destroy the value of rooftop solar for most Californians.

That’s why it’s time to lace up your protest shoes and attend the…

We need to more than double our impressive turnout from the last two rallies.  That means we need you!  And your kids.  And your friends.  And your kids friends - get the picture?

In case you need more detail - really, this is only about saving rooftop solar in California, so I wouldn’t think too many more details would be required but - let CALSSA’s Executive Director, Bernadette Del Chiaro, give you the Word:

On May 9, the CPUC took an unprecedented step of effectively issuing a new decision in the form of 14 questions. Those questions broke five months of silence, pulled back the curtain, and revealed what the CPUC is still thinking: tax solar and send the value of exports over a cliff. The CPUC has essentially floated a trial balloon to see how much push back they will get for proposing a solar tax (by a different name) and repackaging the solar cliff to make it sound nicer (ACC “plus”). Our job is to push back. Hard. Loud. Once and for all: No solar tax. No solar cliff. Not in California. Not now.

We need thousands of you. RSVP here.

Why June 2? For starters, because silence is acquiesce. Think about it. The State of California just floated a proposal to tax the behind-the-meter use of solar energy, again. Every day that goes by in which people aren’t reacting appropriately (i.e., freaking out), is a day in which the message back to our government is one of acceptance. That is certainly not our reality. If we could have, we would have rallied on May 10!
 
Another reason to rally on June 2 is because the CPUC has literally asked for our reaction to their “new” ideas: tax behind-the-meter solar consumption to the tune of $600 per year for the average customer (NOTE: the tax is not limited to the residential market – commercial market you could be caught up in this tragedy, too) and tie export values for everyone to the Avoided Cost Calculator which they have refused to adjust for the rising costs of natural gas, the crisis in the utility-scale market, and the demands of electrification. The CPUC has asked for our reaction by June 10. June 2 is simply the closest date to June 10 at which the CPUC is holding a meeting. The next meeting of the Commission is June 24 which would be too late.
 
Finally, there is never a good time to leave the office and come down off the roof. Collectively, we build more than 400 solar systems a day in California. That’s a lot of activity. And, with all the disruptions to supply chains along with the increased urgency due to this very campaign (ironically driving more people to solar than if they had promised to make gentle and gradual changes from the get-go), our days are busier and more complicated than ever. I get it. But what’s far more inconvenient and costly than shutting down your office for one day is closing your business or laying off half your staff in 2023 because the CPUC got NEM 3.0 horribly wrong. A stitch in time saves nine. Let’s save our market. RSPV now.
 
Finally, you might also be wondering why we should rally. Aren’t there other ways to make our voices heard? Of course the answer to that is, yes, there are many ways to make our voices heard. We are and should continue to speak out through petitions, letters to the governor, testimony that is being written by Brad now (to be submitted June 10), through media (like this question to Governor Newsom by Politico reporter last week), social media, and so much more. But to really be heard, we need to generate media attention too. We need to get on the nightly news and on the pages of the newspapers. Because when we do that, millions of voters hear our cry and we already know those millions are with us on the issue. 
 
It comes down to you reading this message and deciding to join the fray, the fun, the action. So, please join us in either Los Angeles or San Francisco on June 2. It will be worth your time. It will be fun. You’ll be glad you did it.
 
As always, email me with questions or comments.

p.s. Many people like to theorize about the likelihood of a Democratic governor in a pro-environment state harming the darling of the clean energy economy: solar. Putting aside the lack of understanding of how politics really works up here in Sacramento (hint: follow the money toward the path of least resistance), my ask to you is this: don’t leave this critical decision to political theory. Your active involvement in this campaign – most importantly joining us June 2 – will help make sure we win in reality, not just in theory. Let’s not leave anything this important to chance. Join us. 

This is up to us.  This is our fight.  Get in the game, people!  See you on June 2nd!