By William Opalka
The New York Public Service Commission on Thursday temporarily lifted caps on the amount of net-metered solar energy that can be permitted on a utility system. The move was prompted by a July petition from Orange and Rockland Utilities seeking to suspend its net-metered installations because it had applications for interconnections that exceeded the limit it can accommodate under current state rules.
While the petition came from ORU, the commission ruled that all six investor-owned utilities in New York must file tariff revisions to the rules governing their net-metering caps by Oct. 30, which will become effective Nov. 6.
Under the state’s 6% cap, ORU said it would reach its 62-MW limit in the “near future” and should immediately be allowed to suspend interconnections at that time.
The commission, however, rejected ORU’s proposal for a “buy-all, sell-all” solution whereby a distributed-generation customer would sell all its generation output at a wholesale rate and purchase all the electricity it needs at the retail rate.
The PSC said the ceiling would float upward to accommodate all new applications until the commission can answer a key question: How much are distributed energy resources worth? That answer is expected by the end of next year, under New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision initiative (15-E-0407).
“Rather than engaging in another effort to arrive at the proper level of the ceiling that would anticipate perfect coordination with the implementation of REV, the ceilings shall be allowed to float in the interim until the calculation … affecting valuation of DER is decided,” the commission wrote. “That is, utilities shall accept all interconnection applications and continue to interconnect net metered generation without measuring the DG capacity against an artificially set ceiling level.”
The order said state law gave the commission discretion to adjust the caps in the current scenario. It also said momentum to attain the state’s clean energy goals need not be interrupted now. “The pace of development should be set by the NY-Sun program and other policies for promoting net metered generation, not by the level of the ceilings,” the order said. NY-Sun is Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s effort to spend $1 billion by 2023 to install 3 GW of solar generation.
Much of the commission’s discussion centered on whether lifting the cap may create a “gold rush” for residents who want to install rooftop solar.
To Commissioner Diane Burman, who opposed the move, the interim approach will entice potential customers to rush into the interconnection queue to reserve a place and be grandfathered into the system at the time the PSC determines what the cap ultimately should be.
“I don’t see what we’re doing today as helpful over the long term,” she said.
Commission Chair Audrey Zibelman said setting a higher hard cap now would have a similar negative effect, with residents hurrying to reserve a place in the queue before they are cut off when a utility’s limit is reached, creating a stop-and-go scenario for the industry.
“We have a burgeoning solar industry, and we must not allow the caps to become a barrier,” she said.
This is the second time in less than a year the commission has had to address the cap when a utility approached its limit. Last December the commission doubled the statewide cap from 3% to 6% when environmentalists and Central Hudson Gas & Electric petitioned regulators for an increase. (See New York Doubles Solar Net Metering Cap to 6%.)