After important strain from Vote Photo voltaic and different organizations, the Arizona Company Fee (ACC) agreed to rethink the “Grid Entry Cost” that unfairly imposes increased electrical energy costs on households which have chosen to put in photo voltaic panels. Regardless of the sturdy opposition, the ACC is on monitor to affirm its choice to require that clients with rooftop photo voltaic pay a Grid Entry Cost at its assembly on December 17.
The Grid Entry Cost was established in February 2024 when the ACC voted 4-1 to approve a fee enhance for Arizona Public Service (APS) clients, resulting in increased payments for residential ratepayers. In that very same assembly, utility regulators authorized a month-to-month “photo voltaic tax” on the roughly 200,000 Arizonans with rooftop photo voltaic. Beneath the Grid Entry Cost, these households are required to pay a better value for the electrical energy they buy in comparison with their neighbors with out photo voltaic. State and federal legal guidelines usually prohibit discrimination in opposition to clients who use photo voltaic vitality; nevertheless, APS is now the one utility within the nation that fees all photo voltaic clients increased electrical energy costs.
“The Grid Entry Cost is a transparent try to discourage investments in rooftop photo voltaic,” mentioned Vote Photo voltaic’s Inside West Regulatory Director, Kate Bowman. “As Arizona households face rising vitality payments and record-breaking summer time warmth, photo voltaic is one in all their solely choices to cut back their reliance on the monopoly utilities which have saddled them with fee enhance after fee enhance. By approving the Grid Entry Cost, the ACC continues to chip away on the alternative to decide on vitality independence.”
The rehearing, which happened from October twenty eighth by means of November 1st, served as a chance for the general public to voice assist for the removing of the “photo voltaic tax” which impacts all households with photo voltaic, together with legacy internet metering clients and newer photo voltaic clients. The draft choice recommends holding the Grid Entry Cost in place, however the remaining vote will happen throughout an ACC Open Assembly on December seventeenth.
“The rehearing gave ratepayers and residential photo voltaic clients a chance to be heard and categorical their considerations and objections,” mentioned Bowman. “Now, with a fuller image of the issues inherent to the Grid Entry Cost, we hope that the ACC will acknowledge the necessity to repeal this unfair tax on photo voltaic clients.”
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