Rodríguez: El Paso Electric solar class eliminates choice

by state Sen. José Rodríguez, special to the El Paso Times—

With the most annual direct sunlight in the state, Far West Texas and El Paso should be leading efforts to promote solar energy. However, El Paso Electric’s proposal will stifle rooftop solar, crippling small businesses and eliminating consumer choice.

This will hurt both EPE and the community. There is a better way.

EPE proposes to overcharge solar customers — increasing some bills by more than 200 percent. Under EPE’s plan, solar customers’ rates would no longer be based not on how much electricity they actually use, but instead be based on when they draw energy from EPE.

Currently, all residential customers are charged based on electricity used. Solar customers often produce excess energy during sunny days, which is then “net metered,” or measured by EPE.

The customer gets a credit on her bill and excess electricity flows to the grid, where EPE re-sells it to the closest neighbor for a profit. Simple and fair for both sides, right?

Unfortunately, EPE would upend this system. Instead of simply charging solar customers for the net-metered energy they use, it would apply a demand charge based on each customer’s maximum demand, even if it is different than the grid’s “peak demand,” the time when the grid is most used.

For solar customers, this will be times when the sun isn’t shining — so they can’t use their panels to offset demand, effectively making them useless to save money.

This is bad for El Paso consumers, and contradicts the intent of Senate Bill 1910, which I passed in 2011 to require EPE to offer net metering. The bill empowered citizens with the freedom to choose solar. Now, EPE effectively eliminates that choice by removing economic incentives to install solar.

EPE would have you believe solar customers are wealthy, and are increasing costs to other ratepayers. Not true.

First, the Office of Public Utility Counsel, a state agency that represents residential customers in utility proceedings, as a class, found that EPE fails to account for the value of excess electricity produced by solar customers — who OPUC concluded would be systematically overcharged under EPE’s plan.

Second, the majority of El Paso’s solar customers are actually working families making $40,000 to $60,000 annually, according to analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

EPE’s overcharges would block those households’ access to rooftop solar at a time when panels are increasingly affordable. In fact, some builders are making solar part of affordable home packages along with other energy-saving devices, and some installers in El Paso require no money down to install panels.

EPE is going after residential solar because the company sees its explosive growth (from 522 customers in August to nearly 1,000 by November) and increasing availability to lower-income families as a threat to its profits.

This is short-sighted. EPE should instead support rooftop solar as other utilities have.

Consider CPS Energy, San Antonio’s municipally owned utility, which credits customers who host solar panels, maintaining its profits while increasing the use of this clean source of energy in lower-income areas.

I commend the city of El Paso, Eco-El Paso, and other solar advocates for taking this fight to the Texas Public Utility Commission. If these parties to the rate case cannot reach settlement, the PUC should reject El Paso Electric’s solar proposal, just as New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission did.

Solar customers in Texas should not be treated differently than their neighbors the next state over.

Ultimately, being the largest municipality with original jurisdiction over EPE’s rates, the city of El Paso’s voice is vitally important in ensuring all customers are charged fairly, and that El Paso — the Sun City — continues to realize its potential as a leader in solar energy for the rest of Texas.

José Rodríguez represents Senate District 29, which includes El Paso County, in the Texas Legislature.

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