I’ll also disclose that the reasons for the switch to solar include the fact that RMP had been steadily raising rates.
#ROCKY MOUNTAIN POWER PRICE UT FULL#
In full disclosure, I must acknowledge that I am a solar customer, hence the reason Paul and I traveled to Salt Lake City for the hearing to comment. This seems like a reasonable thing to do until one considers that RMP produced the study themselves rather than an unbiased third party doing it for the Commission’s information and decision-making. The study was supposed to help determine if usage patterns between solar NEM customers are different from non-NEM customers such that a separate tariff might be warranted for solar users.
The study was focused on peak energy usage, degree of differentiation between solar and non-solar customers, and the offset between energy delivered to customers and energy delivered from customers to RMP. In response to this, RMP initiated a load study to assess the usage characteristics of Utah’s “residential” solar customers. 13-035-184) which generated opposition and resulted in the PSC’s requirement that the Company’s net metering program costs and benefits be analyzed. This new docket resulted from RMP’s 2014 general rate case (Docket No. Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) is arguing that non-solar customers are subsidizing those who have roof top solar thus necessitating, they feel, a rate increase, in all fairness (of course!) to their non-solar customers. We both took time before the meeting to bone up on the details pertaining to the PSC Docket 14-035-114 and it was quite enlightening.
I drove to Salt Lake City with my partner Paul Van Dam for an August 9 public hearing at which the Public Service Commission took oral comments from citizens about rooftop solar and RMP’s proposed rate increase for those who have solar or would get solar in the future. Even conservative Utah Congresswoman Mia Love’s city of Saratoga Springs, where she served as mayor, is bursting with rooftop solar.īut the future of solar may be at risk if Utah’s Public Service Commission doesn’t make the right decision regarding a rate hike requested by Rocky Mountain Power. In fact, Utah is the 6th largest solar state in the nation, which surprised me. OPINION - Solar is finally taking hold in Washington County and in Utah in general.
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