California pushes a new plan to cut rooftop solar incentives

California is poised to reduce payments to homes and businesses that go solar for clean electricity they supply to the power grid — a landmark shift in how the state promotes a crucial technology for fighting climate change. In a written statement, the Affordable Clean Energy for All campaign — which is funded by the three monopoly utilities — said the new proposal “fails to make the meaningful reform necessary to ensure that all electricity customers, those with rooftop solar and those without, pay their fair share of the costs” for maintaining the electric grid. David Hochschild — who leads another state agency, the California Energy Commission — described the proposal as a “haircut” for the rooftop solar industry. The Center for Biological Diversity said in an emailed statement that the new plan “abandons the hefty solar tax from last year’s proposal but still threatens to put affordable renewable energy out of reach for most communities.” Environment California’s state director, Laura Deehan, criticized the proposal as “risky,” saying in an email that state officials “need to make rooftop solar as affordable and accessible as possible so that every household with solar potential can realistically make the choice to go solar.” Sachu Constantine, executive director of advocacy group Vote Solar, thinks the utilities commission made the right move by eliminating new monthly fees. The Public Utilities Commission said in a written statement that its new proposal “continues to support the solar industry while it pivots to a solar plus battery storage marketplace, which will bolster the local green energy economy.” The agency pointed to changes to electricity rate structures that it said would incentivize more Californians to pair their solar panels with batteries, and to operate their systems in a way that would support the larger power grid on the hottest summer days.