But new customer sign-ups fell to 6,351 in 2018 and 4,968 in 2019. Growth peaked at more than 10,000 connections per year in 20, with the vast majority located in Utah. Installations grew rapidly in the three-state Rocky Mountain Service area prior to 2017 - 1,380 new rooftop solar connections in 2014, then 3,151 new customers in 2015. "So Utah is still far ahead of Oregon on solar," he said.īut the change in pace in Utah following the end of net metering was stark. Spencer Hall, a Rocky Mountain Power spokesperson who works out of his division’s Salt Lake City headquarters, said the company logged 383 new residential generators in Utah this past November, compared to just 54 in Oregon. But sales are currently a fraction of what installers enjoyed a few years ago. Regionally, Utah remains a strong player in the rooftop solar market. Another five states are already in the process of transitioning from net metering, and at least 25 states are considering similar actions, according to Autumn Proudlove, the North Carolina center’s senior manager of policy research. The utility, meanwhile, has begun to offer new options for crowdsourcing clean energy projects at the community level.Īnd while Utah is among the first states in the nation to end net metering and replace it with a lower successor tariff, according to the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, it won’t be the last. The solar industry, Ellard suspects, will move toward increased deployment of home battery storage and self-sufficiency, eventually reversing the industry’s current downward trend in Utah. Long-term success will require both solar energy providers and Rocky Mountain Power to innovate and find new models for funding clean energy. This is because net metering, Ellard says, was structurally unstable from the start. News of the agreement sent solar sales in Utah tumbling, but as the rate hearings approach, no one is clambering to bring net metering back. The new rate would only apply to customers who install rooftop systems after the end of this year. Per that agreement, the new tariff - which Rocky Mountain Power emphasizes is paid as a credit against future electrical bills - would take effect in 2021. PacifiCorp - which does business under the Rocky Mountain Power name in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming - has proposed discussing a $.015/kWh tariff later this year as part of a rate case planned when state regulators agreed to end net metering in 2017. State regulators initially set a temporary tariff at $.092/kWh pending a series of rate cases scheduled to take place this fall. Where net metering required electric utilities to reimburse rooftop solar customers for excess power at full retail rates, the new program would allow the utility to cap reimbursement tariffs at a lower rate that more closely reflects wholesale power costs. So they sat down with state and utility leaders and hammered out an agreement to replace net metering with a yet-to-be finalized program. Solar company officials believed the then-unrelenting growth trajectory was proof their industry was sufficiently established to stand on its own two feet. That rapid growth led to calls from both state energy officials, and Utah’s electric utility monopoly, to end net metering and government-backed subsidies for the booming rooftop solar industry.
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