Net Metering Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Future Looks Bright For Solar Installation In State, CEO Says

Curtis Tate spoke recently with Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, about solar’s growth in the Mountain State.

Solar is expanding in West Virginia, thanks to shifts in federal and state policies. Curtis Tate spoke recently with Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, about solar’s growth in the Mountain State.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tate: What is the Solar For All Program and how does Solar Holler fit in?

Conant: So it’s a $7 billion program through EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) at the federal level. This all came through the Inflation Reduction Act from two years ago. And there was a competitive program across the country, for states and nonprofits to put together programs to help incentivize solar for low income families across the country. Solar shouldn’t be for just country clubs.

The West Virginia Office of Energy submitted an application that we supported to set up a program across West Virginia that’ll help buy down the cost of solar for families that really need it most. There were a couple of other programs in there, including solar for colleges and student housing across the state. And we’re really looking forward to implementing it or helping bring those projects to life in the future. We don’t have any direct involvement, more just that we’re really excited. Excited that West Virginia won over $100 million to really punch above our weight when it came to population.

Tate: The West Virginia Legislature didn’t take up the community solar bill you pushed for. Has anything changed since then?

Conant: The other piece that kind of dominated the solar sphere during the session was the Public Service Commission (PSC) case around FirstEnergy and net metering. So that got settled. I think the session was still in at that point. But at the end of March, the commission officially accepted a settlement that I had negotiated with FirstEnergy.

We have until the end of this year to get folks in under the existing rules. And then everybody gets grandfathered in for 25 years before the new program rolls out in January of next year. That’s probably top of mind for me as far as the most significant change for solar in the state right now.

Tate: The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced a 250-megawatt solar project in Nicholas County. That’s pretty big, isn’t it?

Conant: That is a really big deal. It’s getting cheaper and cheaper across the country. We’ve seen the technology continue to fall in price over the last couple of years, even while everything else was going up. I think it’s a harbinger of things to come.

Tate: What are the advantages of pairing batteries with solar? Does it help stabilize the grid?

Conant: Absolutely, because you can soak up the sun in the middle of the day and discharge the batteries in the evening, when everyone’s coming home. Over the course of the day, you have pretty consistent curves for how power is used. You get a little spike first thing in the morning when everyone’s waking up and then it’s all predictable. What batteries are allowing us to do is take that midday sun and shift when you use that energy into the evenings when people are coming home when you get those big surges in power demand.

On the small scale side, people are putting in storage because it’s honestly more dependable than the grid. Especially if you live up a holler somewhere, and the power goes out every time the wind blows, folks are putting in solar and battery systems to take them through multi-day outages in a way that the grid can’t. There’s other reasons. You can reduce how much power you draw from the grid at any given time. Because if you’re a big industrial or commercial user, you get charged for the highest peak power use over the course of the month, and you can use batteries to bring those peaks down. So there’s a bunch of different uses for them. But overall, what it’s going to do is allow us to use renewable energy when we want to, not just when it’s produced, and it also just kind of evens things out.

Tate: How much of the new investment in clean energy in West Virginia and other states has been spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act?

Conant: I don’t know the exact count on it. But there has been just a huge surge in manufacturing announcements in particular, and I’m still continuing to see existing panel manufacturers overseas announce new factories, like I just saw over the last couple of weeks down in North Carolina. I think that pace will probably slow down a little bit just because they’ll build all these factories, and then as panels and equipment start rolling off the lines, you’ve got to have time to soak it up and build it into the supply chain. But the investments that are being made, they’re going to keep pumping out equipment and panels and inverters and all the other stuff they’re making over the next 15, 20, 30 years.

We’ve been buying all our panels from a factory in Georgia for the last five years or so. And they’re going through a massive expansion of their facility right now. The electrical brains of the system are called the inverters, and we put one micro inverter on the back of each solar panel. Because of the Inflation Reduction Act, the manufacturer we use – they’re a California company, but they just opened up facilities in South Carolina and Wisconsin and Texas. So now, all of our inverters are coming out of South Carolina. And that’s been that way for the past year now.

Tate: Is there any concern that a change in the White House could roll back some of these policies? Or is the momentum too strong at this point?

Conant: I’d hate to see anything rolled back. I do think though, that at some point, the train has left the station. One of the really powerful things about the Inflation Reduction Act was extending solar and renewable energy off the coasts. It’s driving an incredible amount of investment in coal country. We’re seeing investments in West Virginia, we’re seeing investments in Kentucky and Texas and Wyoming and all across the country, in the areas of America that have powered the rest of the country. They are really benefiting from the IRA and we’re seeing this resurgence in manufacturing, so I have a hard time imagining a world where Congress would want to take that away.

Tate: How does West Virginia compare with other states in terms of solar development?

Conant: We’ve got a stronger industry here at this point than California does. With how everything’s shaken out between the net metering deal, West Virginia is infinitely better than what California has at this point. Essentially, we’re kind of in an upside-down world now where it’s easier to do solar in West Virginia than in California.

Solar Holler is an underwriter of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

PSC Approves Settlements In Mon Power Net Metering, Fuel Cases

New solar customers will get a reduced net metering credit starting next year. And Mon Power will be able to recover fuel costs from electricity customers over the next three years.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission has approved settlements in two cases involving Mon Power.

New solar customers will get a reduced net metering credit starting next year. And Mon Power will be able to recover fuel costs from electricity customers over the next three years.

Starting Jan. 1, households with rooftop panels will receive an approximately 9 cents per kilowatt hour credit for the power they generate that goes to the grid.

Under the settlement the PSC approved, existing solar customers will get the higher rate of 11 to 13 cents a kilowatt hour for the next 25 years.

The settlement was a compromise. Mon Power and Potomac Edison had proposed reducing the net metering credit to 6.6 cents a kilowatt hour.

As of March 27, Mon Power began recovering $55.4 million in deferred fuel costs. That will continue through the end of December.

Next year, the company will be allowed to recover $99.5 million, and $95.8 million in 2026.

Like many electric utilities, Mon Power paid steeply higher prices for coal in 2021 and 2022.

Mon Power, Consumer Groups Settle Solar Net Metering Case

The sides settled on a compromise of roughly 9 cents a kilowatt hour. The new credit takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

Mon Power has settled a case with consumer groups that will affect households that have rooftop solar panels.

Existing customers receive a retail rate of 11 to 13 cents per kilowatt hour for the power their solar panels send back to the grid, a process known as net energy metering.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison proposed to cut that credit in half to 6.6 cents per kilowatt hour, the wholesale price.

The sides settled on a compromise of roughly 9 cents a kilowatt hour. The new credit takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025. Existing customers will still receive the higher credit for 25 years.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) must still approve the settlement.

A bill moving through the House of Delegates would protect the higher net metering credit.

The parties to the settlement include the PSC, the West Virginia Consumer Advocate Division, Citizen Action Group, Solar United Neighbors, Energy Efficient West Virginia and Solar Holler.

“While we continue to believe that the retail rate is fairest for residential solar customers to receive as a credit, we think that this is a fair settlement in the context of this case,” said Leah Barbour, state director for Solar United Neighbors. “There are some important protections for current customers and clear guidelines to ensure solar will continue to work going forward.”

Mon Power serves 395,000 customers in 34 West Virginia counties. Potomac Edison serves 155,000 customers in the Eastern Panhandle.

Park in Richwood to Feature Solar Panels on Trellises

An old lot in Richwood may soon become a park featuring trellises with solar panels.

After two years of waiting, Create West Virginia and Richwood Blueprint Community will hold a groundbreaking event Saturday to begin construction of Helios Park in Richwood.

The idea for the park first began in early 2013 when Create West Virginia featured solar panels at its annual conference held in Richwood that year.

Once complete, the park will be located in an old lot across from the visitor’s center in Richwood. It will feature six solar panels mounted on white oak trellises that will look like trees. The entire space will be educational and feature a storm water filter, air purifier, energy generator, and solar power-net metering demonstrations.

Rebecca Kimmons is with Create West Virginia and is the Project Director for Helios Park.

“We think Richwood can have another life, and that’s what this park is all about,” Kimmons explained, “That’s why it’s so exciting. People in West Virginia tend to look back, and they remember when times were wonderful and times were good, and now they’re uncertain like so many of us about what the future’s gonna hold. So I think what this park is going to do is talk to people, demonstrate to people what the future could hold, if we have the political will to make it so.”

Create West Virginia hopes the park will be completed by the end of August this year.

Helios Park’s groundbreaking event will be held Saturday, April 18th at 9:30 AM. It’s free and open to the public.

Revising W.Va.'s Net Metering Standards: A Boon or Bust for the Solar Industry?

In the first days of the 2015 Legislative session, energy was the focus of legislators’ attention. A bill that first began as a total repeal of the alternative and renewable energy portfolio act soon became only a partial repeal as lawmakers’ attempted to leave in place current net metering standards.

Those standards govern the way solar energy is calculated and credited between a customer and an electric company. As the legislative session progressed, however, another bill relating to those same net metering standards came to lawmakers’ desks. The overall opinion of the new bill, which has been signed into law, is mixed.

The Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library in the Eastern Panhandle had solar panels installed on their roof in January and in just a few short months has already started seeing the benefits.

Gretchen Frye is the director of the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library, and she says in March, the library saw an 8% decrease in its electric bill which can make a big difference for libraries who struggle for funding.

The back of Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library and its set of solar panels.

“Libraries face, you know, budget crunches, and in our experience libraries, the demand for libraries continues to increase, but at the same time our budgets are staying the same or are even decreasing,” Frye explained, “so, we, this is a creative way for us to save some money for the library and help the environment at the same time.”

Frye says as the weather gets better she expects their electric bill to continue to drop.

Mountain View Solar installed the library’s solar panels. Located in Berkeley Springs, it’s the largest solar installation company in the state. Mike McKechnie is the company’s president and he explains one of the major differences between buildings that use rooftop solar and buildings that don’t is the way the electricity generated is metered.

“Everybody has an electric meter on their house, and it usually spins in one direction,” McKechnie said, “It counts the number of kilowatts, the amount of power that you’re using, they read it at the end of the month and they send you a bill, you pay the bill, and you get to do that happy event every month for the rest of your life,”

Homes with solar panels use a different meter though called a net meter.

“Net metering is where a new meter gets put on that spins both directions,” he explained, “When I’m buying power, let’s say you’re buying power at your house, you’re spending money on your bill, because you’re buying power, well if you’ve got solar on your house, you might be making all the power that your house is using, and you’re making excess. The power goes back to the utility meter and spins the opposite direction.”

That excess power is collected from the homes where it’s generated, returned to the power grid and ultimately sold by the power companies. Instead of being paid for generating power, net metering rules written by the state’s Public Service Commission in 2011 dictated solar customers receive a credit for the power they generate. They can then use the credit to buy power from the utility when they generate less than they need.

Those rules, however, were part of the state’s alternative and renewable energy portfolio act, an act that was repealed this session. Democratic Senator Herb Snyder of Jefferson County was one of many lawmakers concerned with the repeal.

“I think it was a step backwards,” Snyder noted, “that most states have an energy portfolio, we’re an energy state, so it just seems to be ridiculous not to have an energy portfolio, that’s why then Governor Manchin, now US Senator Manchin, did that; to make a collage of energy sources.”

Inside the Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library.

The alternative and renewable energy portfolio called on electric companies in West Virginia to produce 25 percent of their electricity with alternative and renewable sources by 2025.

But this session, lobbyists from the coal industry told lawmakers the standards were hurting the mining industry, even though utilities testified they were already meeting the production standards. As the bill began to move through the process, Snyder and other members of the Eastern Panhandle lobby grew more concerned that a repeal of the portfolio would result in a repeal of the net metering rules that protected solar panel owners.

“I immediately picked it up and said we really don’t want to do this, so instead of trying to carve that out of the original repeal, they originated another bill to put that back in code,” Snyder said.

House Bill 2201 was meant to do just that; put those rules back in code. Approved and signed into law, the bill requires the state PSC to rewrite the net metering standards.

McKechnie says he and other solar energy advocates are not happy with the bill. McKechnie believes the large utility companies want the PSC to rewrite the rules to uproot rooftop solar by charging the ratepayer more money without receiving credits for the energy they are producing.

“This attack with 2201 is about trying to impose an additional cost to everyone that has a net meter,” McKechnie said, “Why would you direct the Public Service Commission to look at the cost only of a new generation facility without the benefit to the ratepayer?”

Backup batteries inside Mountain View Solar.

Senator Snyder however supported the bill after hearing from those companies in committee meetings before the bill’s passage.

“The power companies are saying, positively, and my question in committee, I put them on the spot, is, are you going to increase the fees or costs to homeowners and small libraries and so forth, and they said positively not, no, now I have to take them at their word on that for something I’m not an expert on,” Snyder said.

Snyder says as it was explained to him, the additional cost will come for some solar producers, but those are producers with large solar farms, not homeowners with smaller numbers of panels.

“They’re looking predominantly at the larger solar farms that are owned by probably investors, one or many, to build these power generation units solely for the sake of selling power onto the grid,” he explained.

Snyder says installing the net meters into these large facilities can be costly and utilities want to ensure that under the new rules those costs won’t be passed along to the consumers, whether they produce solar power or not.

Jim Kotcon is the Chair for the Energy Committee in the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, a group that advocates for solar and other renewable energies. Kotcon says the Sierra Club would like to see net metering expanded under the new PSC rules.

“One of the things that we think would be important is to actually try to expand net metering and the opportunities for homeowners to put on solar panels or wind generation and other types of renewable energy,” said Kotcon, “We think that the market is moving this direction very quickly, much more quickly than the utilities are able to adjust too. And we’d like to see the utilities sit down and develop the kinds of plans that would be needed to help transition our electric industry into something that will take advantage of renewable energy much more easily.”

Senator Snyder, however, says he thinks once the Public Service Commission evaluates the current net metering standards; it’s likely those standards will stay as they are.

Gov. Tomblin Provides Statements on Signing of Three Controversial Bills

Gov. Tomblin provided statements Thursday on the signing of three bills passed by the state legislature.

Senate Bill 357, creating the Coal Jobs and Safety Act of 2015:

“Today, I signed Senate Bill 357, which calls for changes in several aspects of West Virginia’s mining regulations. As part of my decision to sign the bill, I have worked with legislative leadership to pass a resolution directing the Board of Coal Mine Health and Safety to adopt rules related to the movement of underground equipment. I strongly urge the Board to collaborate and develop responsible regulations that will ensure the safety of our hardworking coal miners while allowing operators additional flexibility to be more productive and competitive long-term.”

Senate Bill 361, adjusting the state’s calculation of prevailing wage:

“Today, I signed Senate Bill 361, which will adjust the state’s calculation of prevailing wage to establish a figure more reflective of actual earnings in regions across the state. While I understand not everyone is happy with this compromise, I’m grateful for the continued work of all involved who came together to address the concerns of hardworking West Virginians while establishing a common sense approach to continued investments in our infrastructure.”

House Bill 2201, requiring the Public Service Commission to adopt certain net metering and interconnection rules and standards:

“Today I signed House Bill 2201, which regulates net metering as part of West Virginia’s power generation. I appreciate the increasing role solar and wind power will play in our state, and I encourage the Public Service Commission to continue to evaluate the costs and benefits of West Virginia’s net metering policy to balance the potential for new jobs and investment in alternative energy without unfairly burdening current rate-payers.”