5.2. ERMUSR 09-10-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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and other considerations that a utility's retail rate or typical avoided cost rate does not reflect. This logical approach gave the utility lobbies hope that the state could in fact develop a rate that accurately and transparently reflects the true value of extra energy sold by solar generating customers to their utilities. One particularly significant question arose, however, as details of the proposed formula could be analyzed. The legislation would give the state authority to "incorporate other values into the methodology"without clear limitation. Specifically included among those other factors could be "credit for locally manufactured or assembled systems." Furthermore, the proposal set an arbitrary price floor whereby utilities would pay no less than their retail rates-a rate equal to or higher than what they previously paid. These provisions begged the question "Value of solar to whom?" It was clear the state had broader public policy benefits in mind that it intended to add to the solar producers'side of the rate equation at the expense of the utilities and their customers who would pay for this energy. And so it became evident throughout the course of proceedings that behind those solar generating customers stood the true beneficiaries of the supposed "true value of solar"model- the manufacturers and installers of solar generation equipment. In the most general sense, the legislation's main thrust would have grossly undermined municipal authority to operate and regulate city utilities for the benefit of their customer- owners and their communities. It also simply ignored the immense differences among the state's various utilities, treating the very large and the very small identically. Amazingly, however, the misguided core proposal was perhaps not even the most egregious aspect of the legislation as it continued to grow into what would become the omnibus energy bill. From the outset and throughout the course of committee proceedings, MMUA voiced steady opposition to the overall legislative package,specifically identifying and explaining its many problems. Certain aspects of the omnibus bill would have allowed unregulated electricity sales by private non-utility companies throughout Minnesota, directly circumventing the extremely important regulatory framework of exclusive service rights and accompanying responsibilities of the state's established, regulated utilities. The bill would have upended the existing renewable energy standard's foundational premise that allows utilities to meet it with whatever eligible generation resources best match their needs. It would have required municipal utilities to produce and submit annually detailed maps of their distribution systems, identifying locations where solar installers could best target the utilities'customers. For these and other reasons, MMUA strongly opposed this legislation. As a direct result, the authors of the bills in the House and Senate amended their respective bills in ways that significantly limited objectionable aspects for all utility sectors(particularly third-party retail electric sales as noted above). Realizing that the bill still would not pass votes by their respective full bodies over continued opposition by municipal and cooperative utilities, the authors accepted demands to remove applicability of the omnibus energy law on municipal and cooperative utilities. Thus, the following provision summaries pertain only to investor- owned utilities, unless otherwise identified by underlined text. 63