Utilities still bilking home-grown grid-tie solar

Utilities are not your friends. 

In 2012 the San Marcos Cafe & Feed Store built a photovoltaic system that produces about 40kW. Arrays like theirs are rapidly becoming ubiquitous throughout New Mexico especially now that the community solar program has become law. Solar gardens connect multiple residents to electricity without installing their own modules, charge controllers, inverters and batteries. New Mexico is ranked third for solar power potential.

Under the regulations, community solar facilities must have a capacity of no more than 5 megawatts of alternating current, and at least 10 subscribers, with a single subscriber able to be allocated no more than 40 percent of generating capacity. At least 40 percent of the total generating capacity must also be available in subscriptions of 25 kilowatts or less, and at least 30 percent of the electricity produce by a community solar facility must be reserved for low-income subscribers. [Carlsbad Current-Argus]

Xcel Energy is responsible for part of the methane bubble over the Four Corners area. In 2015 the Minneapolis-based utility even sued to prevent the hookup of a solar generating station for a Minnesota company and enjoys frequent rate hikes from the South Dakota Public Utilities Cartel (SDPUC). Several utilities are based in South Dakota because of the state's regressive tax structure — Northwestern Energy and Black Hills Power among them. 

The cost of subsidizing, manufacturing, transporting, erecting, maintaining then removing just one wind turbine eyesore bat and bird killer would take a thousand subscribers to energy self-reliance. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard. 

In 2021 a study at Michigan Technological University revealed that far more work is needed to ensure the owners of self-generated electricity systems are not unjustly subsidizing electric utilities. 

Albuquerque enjoys an annual average of 310 days of sunshine while Rapid City in my home state of South Dakota gets about 230 days of sun. Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) pays .0025¢ (1/4 cent) per kilowatt hour for renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated by home photovoltaic or wind turbine systems. The net-metering rate is set by the Public Regulation Commission or PRC.

In Colorado Xcel charges homeowners 17 cents a kilowatt hour in base rates but only pays 8 cents a kilowatt hour to subscribers with rooftop solar who put their home grown power into the grid.

Most solar owners will have to wait for full benefits until after Xcel installs smart meters for all the 1.5 million electric customers it serves, according to the Colorado Solar and Storage Association (COSSA). The solar trade group is furious at Xcel’s slow solar customer rollout of smart meters, which the customer and utility need to control and bill the new set of variable rates. That’s unacceptable to the solar trade association. Solar industry officials said Xcel has been sharing its plans for distributing smart meters since at least 2016, and continues to miss targets for getting solar customers on board. Colorado law mandates that 80% of electric utility carbon emissions be cut by 2030, from a 2005 baseline. [The Colorado Sun]

Don’t tie your system to the grid but if you use it as a backup keep your own electricity completely separate from the utility that reads your meter.

Learn more at Searchlight New Mexico.