The chance to reform a internet metering framework that has gutted rooftop photo voltaic challenge deployment in California was dashed yesterday.
Credit score: SnapNrack
The California Court docket of Appeals upheld the present internet metering program, Internet Vitality Metering 3.0 (NEM 3.0), after a months lengthy evaluate. A number of photo voltaic business and environmental teams filed a lawsuit in opposition to the California Public Utilities Fee concerning NEM 3.0 in 2023, and the California Supreme Court docket picked up the lawsuit in April 2024. The California Supreme Court docket to ruled in August 2025 that the Court docket of Appeals should revisit and reassess NEM 3.0.
However now this system stays unchanged.
“We’re extraordinarily dissatisfied within the court docket of attraction’s resolution on remand from the state Supreme Court docket. As a substitute of this case with contemporary eyes and doing the due diligence of studying and deciphering the statute, the court docket of attraction rushed to judgement, siding with the pro-utility CPUC and its utility allies,” mentioned Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior VP for California at EWG, in a press assertion.
NEM 3.0 was initiated in April 2023. The online billing framework shifted to an hourly time-of-use price for compensating residential photo voltaic prospects based mostly on when exported vitality was wanted most on the grid. This alteration was made, partially, to encourage extra vitality storage adoption at a residential degree, however vitality export compensation for PV was reportedly minimize by 70 to 80% in comparison with California’s earlier internet metering packages.
By the top of 2023, California was anticipated to lose 22% of its residential photo voltaic workforce. Vitality storage has grown within the state — with Berkeley Lab reporting a 60% attachment price in 2024 — however rooftop PV hasn’t recovered within the main state for photo voltaic.
“We could have simply set the clocks ahead an hour however this resolution units California again a decade in relation to constructing a clear vitality future. It isn’t simply Washington D.C. setting us again on vitality affordability and reliability. California is offering greater than its fair proportion of pressured errors,” Del Chiaro mentioned.
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