5.5. ERMUSR 03-19-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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r*,VFr, r5" FW, WF, Position Statement Proposed Expansion of Net Metering Requirements The Minnesota Department of Commerce is propos- ing major changes to the law governing mandated utility purchases of electricity generated by renew- able energy facilities owned by retail customers. We believe that DER's proposal might be appropriate in some cases for large utilities, but is completely inappropriate and unworkable for Minnesota's small municipal electric utilities. DER Proposal The DER proposal would require that Minnesota electric utilities choose one of two options for compensating customers for electric power generated from their own renewable energy facilities and put into the local distribution system. The first option would increase the threshold size •of the customer -owned renewable facilities from which utilities would be obligated to purchase excess power. The present "net metering" law requires retail electric utilities to pay retail rates • for energy produced by renewable facilities of up to 40 kilowatts (KW) in size. DER's proposal would increase the size of customer -owned generators from which utilities would be compelled to purchase power from 40 KW to 1 Megawatt (MW) in size. The new proposal would also change the amount distribution utilities pay for renewable energy from the current retail rate to the utility's avoided cost. We believe that the 2,500% increase in the size of the generator that the utility would have to accept is completely unacceptable for Minnesota's small municipal electric utilities. The second option would establish a new net meter- ing program patterned after the "Value of Solar" net metering program initiated by the municipal utility of the City of Austin, Texas. Under this op- tion the distribution utility would continue to sell all power to supply the customer load at their exist- ing retail rate, and the distribution utility would be required to purchase electric power generated from solar photovoltaic devices Photovoltaic Solar Resource e United States °• --� -- mnoymuf ,ti,:ta .104?, f.Nei!t m,6^IMmu:er'SV4r fAE� h,0i a /i kuW %AH "Gob kwhfmIIDay een.n ::,': -, , -.�:,- a.: nurv.. nr+ at.. �.- auv,• o. m:. v., r,r,w�+•,a..;y,a,�.vn,vnl�.•;.. r.��..+�x :.rv.,.r This map was created by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. 4 / 2013 State Position Statements owned by the customer. The reimbursement rate would be based upon a number of fac- tors including: loss savings, energy savings, generation capacity savings, fuel price hedge value, transmission and distribution capacity savings, and environmental benefits. Taken together, these savings are intended to reflect the val- ue of distributed solar energy to the utility —a "break- even" value for a specific kind of dis- tributed generation resource, and a value at which the util- ity is economically neutral to whether it supplies such a unit of energy or obtains it from the customer. Austin Energy's program has been in place only since October 2012 and must be