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‘PL 18-75 yet another burden on CUC customers’
Consultants of the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission calls a law that prioritizes renewable net metering for the hospital and public schools “another burden” for non-net metered customers.
Georgetown Consulting Group, as part of an interim report presented to the CPUC yesterday, said the modified Public Law 18-75 adds more burden to customers not using the net metering program.
PL 18-75 and its subsequent modifications prioritize net energy metering capacity for health and education facilities. Through this law, the Legislature finds that “the only way to reduce utility costs is to utilize renewable energy sources to offset the electricity or other utility required for the operations of [the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. and Public School System].
If implemented, the law would reduce the utility costs for CHCC and PSS at the “direct expense of increasing costs to all of CUC’s other customers,” the CPUC consultants said.
“This is because the fixed capacity and delivery system infrastructure cost and non-fuel [operating and maintenance] cost avoided by [the hospital and public schools] does not somehow go away because of this change to the law,” the consulting group wrote.
“Instead the costs avoided by CHCC and PSS will by necessity be collected by CUC from its other customers,” they said.
This results in “yet another burden” to CUC’s non-net metered customers, the group writes, from what they believe is already a “flawed” net metering system with an “excessive maximum 10 megawatt capacity limitation” and its allowable 30 percent net energy metering capacity penetration level.
The consultants also said that while the law requires “prioritization,” it does not state what this means.
Perhaps this means that CHCC and PSS will not be handled on a first come, first serve-basis and will simply go to the front of the queue, the consultants said.
But without clarification, this would seem to leave the matter of prioritization to CUC’s own interpretation, since the law states that its implementation will not require the review or approval of CPUC.
As the report states, CUC has not yet proposed or adopted any rules for the purpose of this implementation.
