The Value of Solar Tarrif (VOS) will be going down from 12.8c to 10.7c. for 2014. This will essentially increase your utility bill by 16% /- If you are concerned about this, please reach out to your City Council. There is a link in David's newsletter. Check out David Dixon's newsletter. http://buildnative.com/solar-under-attack/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Solar Under Attack in Texas - December 7 2013&utm_content=Solar Under Attack in Texas - December 7 2013 CID_0c3f4c7c879645d81c895cfd0b9785e9&utm_source=AscendWorks Bullseye
================================== Additionally, beginning in January, AE (City Council) will take the value of any “excess” rooftop solar power generated and “sweep” that money to other customers. AE estimated ~11% of solar customers generated “excess” power. Some of these customers will lose several hundred dollars this year. Initially COA took the value of excess power and deducted it from our water/trash bills. That was changed to the current method that applies the Value of Solar ($0.128/kWhr). COA says they couldn’t continue deducting the value of excess power from other utility bills due to “bookkeeping” problems. AE says it can’t allow us to keep the value of excess power due to “legal advice” and potential “tax problems”. While I’m not certain that AE can’t find a solution I’m certain City Council could find a way to allow us to keep our money. They have no problem with bookkeeping when they provide tax breaks to corporations………...
The City Council held a special meeting December 5 to discuss among other topics: “Item 4, Briefing and discussion regarding the value of solar, the solar credit provided to customers under the residential solar tariff”. http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=201950
The meeting was adjourned after approx. 3 ½ hours. The Value of Solar discussion was postponed – no date specified.
Meeting transcript can be seen here: http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=202082 from 10:53:37 to end of meeting Councilmember Morrison tried to get discussion going on the topic but was unsuccessful. AE has already implemented their plan - letters ar in the mail.
Here's a link to a short article about how some utilities are embracing solar and some are fighting it tooth and nail. The biggest issue for most seems to be pinning down a sustainable business model that they hope will replicate their historic returns. They should probably throw out old benchmarks, and assume lower revenues but that's easier said than done, and for Austin where AE is the largest source of revenue for the city how do we replace that revenue?
"The VOS could have dropped to 7 cents" Debbie Kimberly 12/16
The reason that a lot of Solar folks (installers, advocates, consumers) are concerned about what is going on about the Value of Solar is that it appears that Austin Energy has changed the methodology with which they calculate the number.
And if that's the case there was NO input from the public, from the Electric Utility Commission or the City Council, about the 'correctness' of those changes.
Further because of how late AE presented the material to both the City Council and to the EUC, both groups chose not to address the issue solely because of what the disruption would do to the billing not because of the merits of the discussion. 3 members of the EUC abstained at last night's vote, which was essentially a no vote as. 3 members voted yes, and 1 no.
According to Debbie Kimberly, the utility struggled with the environmental benefits portion of the VOS. Had they dropped that, it could have dropped the VOS to 7 cents.
Solar Austin Anyway, I would encourage those interested to come to the future Solar Austin meetings. Tonight 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. http://www.solaraustin.org/
Solar Austin is going to be our best advocate to try to help maintain the VOS at appropriate levels, and become more transparent.
If you would be interested in seeing what your bill might look like under the new 10.7 VOS, let me know.
Some telling comments from last night. "The VOS could have dropped to 7 cents" Debbie Kimberly 12/16 The reason that a lot of Solar folks (installers, advocates, consumers) are concerned about what is going on about the Value of Solar is that it appears that Austin Energy has changed the methodology with which they calculate the number. And if that's the case there was NO input from the public, from the Electric Utility Commission or the City Council, about the 'correctness' of those changes. Further because of how late AE presented the material to both the City Council and to the EUC, both groups chose not to address the issue solely because of what the disruption would do to the billing not because of the merits of the discussion. 3 members of the EUC abstained at last night's vote, which was essentially a no vote as. 3 members voted yes, and 1 no. According to Debbie Kimberly, the utility struggled with the environmental benefits portion of the VOS. Had they dropped that, it could have dropped the VOS to 7 cents. Solar Austin Anyway, I would encourage those interested to come to the future Solar Austin meetings. Tonight 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. http://www.solaraustin.org/ Solar Austin is going to be our best advocate to try to help maintain the VOS at appropriate levels, and become more transparent. If you would be interested in seeing what your bill might look like under the new 10.7 VOS, let me know.
======================= Speaker tonight will be Dr. Varun Rai, a member of the Austin Electric Utility Commission
In case y'all didn't see my posting on FB, there are many "methods" used to calculate VoS... San Antonio's figure is half of Austin's, for example, so there are many known inconsistencies in methods. It's not really a matter of public input.
Its all about input to the utility from citizens, the Electric Utility Commission, and from the city council especially because of the inconsistencies outlined in the Rabago article.
With statistics (which this math is all about) you can manipulate the numbers to any desired outcome, by the input numbers you use.
Clay Baker and Karen Haddon discussed this at the EUC meeting, asking AE to provide them with the numbers they gave to the folks that created/updated the VOS.
Because of citizen input, CPS delayed its VOS
Well, in a statement made today and again via its online blog, the San Antonio utility wrote, "CPS Energy has agreed to delay changes to its rooftop solar net metering program for one year as it works with local installers to come up with an equitable solution." The utility is forming a working group after having recently hosted a town hall with solar installers and stakeholders.
Methodology Austin Energy commissioned a study in 2006 to create a Value of Solar.
They created a methodolgy/calculator
Since 2006 they have updated the numbers annually from 10.3 cents in 2006 to 16.4 cents in 2008 when it made the purchase of solar from webberville at 16.8 cents to 2011 at 12.8 cents
The VOS is very complicated and includes many components. One of the components is the cost natural gas. According to Clay Baker,member of the EUC, he believes that AE has changed the way it calculates the NG cost, especially in light of the fact that in the last 12 months wholesale NG has gone up in cost from $3.50(2012) to $4.50(2013), and project to go up in 2014 whereas AE has stated its cost went down.
AE also said that the VOS was changing to reflect a nodal market, where the report designing the rate, stated it already was updated for that.
Also AE is changing the lifespan of the PV system from 30 years to 25 years.
The bottom line is that Solar advocates and the Solar community understood that AE would administratively update the VOS each year, not change the methodology with which it calculated the VOS.
The ability for AE to rewrite the rules as it sees fit after it has convinced consumers to install 1,000s of dollar solar is simply not fair.
