By William Opalka

New York utilities last week challenged an order by regulators to temporarily remove the 6% cap on net metered solar-powered systems, saying the move violated state law by failing to provide adequate notice and that the regulators did not adequately justify that the move was in the “public interest” (15-E-0407).

The utilities asked for rehearing of the New York Public Service Commission’s Oct. 16 order that removed caps statewide while the commission develops a long-term solution to determine the value of distributed solar. (See Net Metering Caps Temporarily Lifted in NY.)

“The order contravened the statutory requirement that limits the commission’s role to increasing the ‘percent limits’ of the net metering cap, not removing them,” the petition alleges.

One of the six distribution utilities, Orange and Rockland Utilities, said in the summer that it was close to reaching its limit of 6% of load for net-metered systems.

The PSC responded with an administrative notice in the New York State Register on Aug. 5 seeking comments on the O&R petition. “The commission … may extend relief, in whole or in part or as modified or related, to other electric utilities,” the notice said, naming the other five.

The utilities contended last week, however, that “there was no reasonable basis to assume that a request for comments on a compliance filing made by a single utility would be the basis for the commission implementing a new generic policy with respect to net metering, especially considering the manner in which the commission had properly noticed and duly considered its intended action to increase the net metering cap on two prior occasions.”

First raised from 1% to 3% in June 2013, the cap was boosted to 6% in December 2014.

Commissioner Diane Burman dissented from the PSC’s October order, saying the process used to adopt it failed to give adequate notice to the public or other utilities that a sweeping change was under consideration.

The utilities also say that state law authorizing the PSC to raise the cap restricts the commission to impose a “percent limit.”

“Although the commission characterizes its action as a ‘floating’ cap … this nomenclature does not change the fact that the actual and practical import of the order is that there is no cap at all during the interim period and the commission thereby exceeded the statutory constraint,” they wrote.