By Jeff Parr
When I began my solar business 12 years ago, I felt good about helping customers to save money while also saving our environment. I made it my life’s mission. Today, I am concerned that an upcoming California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) decision may severely harm my livelihood and end the good we’re doing for the planet, for working class families, for businesses, for everyone – all because utilities are aiming to force an end to rooftop solar growth in California.
Later this year, the CPUC will decide the next phase of net energy metering (NEM). NEM is the policy that enables consumer solar; it has made rooftop solar affordable and accessible in the Golden State. But the state’s largest utilities are lobbying hard to lower the benefits of rooftop solar, proposing changes that will make consumer solar nearly twice as expensive as it is today.
Their proposal would make it such that low- and middle-income families wouldn’t be able to see a reasonable return on their investment.
The utilities claim solar panels can only be afforded by the wealthy, causing lower income Californians to pay more for traditional energy on the backs of the rich. I can tell you from first-hand experience in this industry that this is not true.
Today, nearly half of the homeowners we work with are working families. Other clients include schools, houses of worship, non-profits, multi-family housing, affordable housing and others. In the past five years, my company has installed solar panels on 19 schools, 15 houses of worship, and 20 non-profit organizations – places where money is better spent helping our community rather than footing high energy bills.
Just as the solar market is shifting to hard-working, average California households and businesses because of its affordability under the current NEM policy, the utilities want to remove those benefits. Now that solar is a less expensive cleaner alternative than the utilities – now that it’s democratized and affordable for everyone and can become ubiquitous technology – the utilities are making a false argument about it only benefiting the wealthy. In reality, for the past five years it’s been working families driving my business.
My company is able to employ more than 80 hard-working individuals in well-paying careers with benefits, supplying solar systems to our customers of all income levels throughout the Bay Area. As an employer, I’m concerned about what a future CPUC decision on NEM will mean for my employees, some of whom have been with me for 10 years.
NEM helped more than a million Californians become solar customers because it makes solar energy more affordable, allowing customers to see a return on the investment of adding solar panels and battery storage to their homes and businesses. These Californians have helped our state become one of the greenest in the world.
Especially given the threats we’re facing now, like climate change induced wildfires, the CPUC must ensure that the next iteration of NEM promotes continued growth in the distributed solar market, protects solar careers, and enables future consumer solar opportunity for everyone.
Jeff Parr is the founder and CEO of Solar Technologies in Santa Cruz.
