Last night at 11:58 pm (wink, wink), just as we suspected would happen, the Texas Senate unanimously passed through the net metering bill, HB 1243, with solar SB 545 amended on as a bonus. This is great news for Texas consumers, the environment, and solar power.
As you may recall, HB 1243 will ensure that owners of solar installations, small wind turbines, or biogas generators get paid a fair price for the excess power they produce. SB 545 — which after the Voter ID slowdown, we thought was dead — increases incentives for distributed solar power generation by creating a pool of $500 million in solar rebates over the next 5 years. It also calls for a pilot program with a minimum funding of $4 million to put solar on schools (nudge: the State Energy Conservation Office could potentially spend considerably more of their pending stimulus funds to further these projects) and will create thousands of green, local jobs across the state of Texas.
Another amendment to the bill added on SB 2349. This provision would allow oil wells that create natural gas, but not enough to justify paying for collection, to build a generator to run the gas through, make electricity, and sell it back into the grid. The bill would limit production to 2 MW so that they can provide distributed generation. As of right now, they’re just flaring that gas off, so this is definitely a good thing.
According to our friends at Environment Texas (via the Houston Chronicle’s NewsWatch: Energy blog), the amended HB 1243 also
• Requires home builders to offer solar as a standard option in developments with 50 homes or more.
• Prevents homeowners associations from blocking solar panel installations
• Allows up to 70% of incentive funds to be used for utility-scale solar projects
• Allows the Public Utility Commission to extend the program for an additional five years and another $500 million if it determined that a “substantial” amount of manufacturing of solar generation products located in Texas after the initial five-year program
• Requires electric co-ops to allow consumers to interconnect solar to the grid
• Clarifies that consumers will not have to register as a utility and that third party ownership of solar is allowed
• For the next two years, requires retail electric providers to pay at least five cents per kilowatt hour for surplus solar and four cents for other renewable technologies and directs the PUC to determine a fair market price that will become a new “floor” following the two years
• Creates a “Made in Texas” program to certify and encourage Texans to buy locally manufactured solar panels and other energy products. As a result, locally produced products qualify for a 20% larger rebate than imports.
Now that HB 1243 has successfully passed through both chambers of the legislature, we’ve just got to wait and see what comes out of conference committee, where bill authors from both sides will smooth out the differences between their bills. Many thanks to all of you that wrote e-mails and made phone calls in support of these bills. This is a tremendous victory for Texas solar. Keep your fingers crossed that we can send this bill to Governor Perry’s desk!
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From ACT: Last Solar Bill Dies at Midnight Deadline – May 30:
HB 1243 failed to make the midnight deadline for the House to either concur or go to conference on Senate amendments. As HB 1243 died, so did SB 545 – bill to establish a rebate program for distributed solar generation that would have jumpstarted the wide-scale adoption of rooftop solar throughout the state.
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I read with disgust the politics around the whole thing..moving on.. What are the next steps? Gov Perry? (unlikely but possible)… What does it take to put a version of both bills in the ballot in Texas, like Colorado did in 2004(amendment 37)? Anyone knows? BTW we are only behind 5 frickin’ years…wake up Texas!!
[...] the sun has just about gone down on the so-called “solar session”. Friday night, HB 1243 – solar’s last lifeline — was killed on the House [...]
I did find this and I don’t know if it still applies, does anyone know?
Texas Net Metering Order
Net metering is ordered by the Public Utility Commission of Texas under Substantive Rules, Section 23.66(f)(4), which became effective in 1986. The order requires utilities to offer a net metering option to qualifying facilities of 50 kW or less, using renewable energy resources. Utilities will install a single meter for such customers and allow the meter to turn backward to register the net energy consumption or production by the customers. Net consumption is billed at the applicable tariff, and excess generation by the customers during a billing cycle is purchased by utilities at the avoided cost (fuel cost only, no capacity component). Texas initiated the net metering program 10 years ago to promote small wind power and PV markets in the state. There is no statewide limit on the number of customers or total capacity under the net metering program.
Don’t believe so. PUC revisited the net metering rule and rewrote it — you should be able to find the new rules on their website http://www.puc.state.tx.us/
Thank you for that link it did help.
I am currently working on building eco-friendly portable classrooms that are solar powered for schools, the solar power will help during the school year but in the summer months when the sun is out longer and the classrooms are used less they will produce more than they use, I am still unclear as to how or if they will be compensated for the extra power, if they have no compensation the cost of solar just doesn’t make sense and I regretfully need to scrap the idea
If anyone has any information on buyback rates I would greatly appriciate it, I just contacted TXU and the directed me to Oncor, I have read a lot of stuff from other people about getting the runaround from both of them so we will see
TXU is offering 7.5 cents per kwh which is about 50% of their charging rates.
I do not see the benefit this bill offers as it allowed the energy companies to reset their meters on their customers. All those (me included) who had energy credits lose those and now get half of what we used to for power.
As of today they are revising their contracts and taking out the part where customers sign over their renewable energy credits to TXU for free.