SMUD Solar Shares. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) operates Solar Shares. This successful program allows customers to contribute through subscriptions toward the cost of a shared utility-scale PV projects. SMUD is the nation's 6th largest municipally-owned utility serving almost 600,000 people, 90% of which are residential. About 20% of its energy supply comes form California-eligible renewable sources.
Solar Shares customers subscribe to the program annually, with fixed payments added to their electric bills. The amount customers pay ranges from $4-$50 extra per month. Solar Shares used a third party power purchase agreement to build the 1 MW facility. Shares sold out six months after the July 2008 launch.
SUMD offers subscriptions with no obligation to renew, giving customers a chance to "kick the solar tires" without a long term commitment - an appealing choice in a down economy. SMUD also encourages energy efficiency by offering larger subsidy solar payments to frugal energy users. The utility calculates that Solar Shares participants pay, on average, 20-50% less a month for the generation they receive than if they had financed their own PV systems over 20 years.
Arizona Public Service's Community Power Project. APS has proposed a program to develop distributed PV on the roofs of Flagstaff customers in a model it likens to an interconnected renewable power plant. The project would allow customers to go solar with no upfront cost, ownership or maintenance responsibilities. APS would install and own the solar panels and receive the energy output as utility-owned generation. A participating customer would receive a 20-year fixed Community Power credit for the solar portion of his bill, in an amount equal to the customer's current electric rate. The company is contracting with solar companies to install and maintain 1.5 MW of capacity on the roofs of 200-300 customers.
Eligible customers must have proper roof direction and structural integrity as well as meet other requirements. The customer provides APS an easement, granting access to their roof for installation and maintenance. The program launch is pending on approval from the Arizona Corporation Commission.
States Advance Community Net Metering
Several state legislatures have begun to explore community solar by requiring regulators and utilities to offer community net-metering programs, allowing multiple customers to net meter with a single facility. Community net-metering legislation also allocates net-metering benefits among a group of participants in new ways.
Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine have enacted community net-metering laws. Vermont, the early adopter, requires utilities to offer group net metering to farmers since 2006 and has since expanded the policy to additional customer classes. To set up a group system, investors must have a point of contact and inform the utility of basic elements of the arrangement such as a dispute resolution mechanism. The utility issues a single aggregate monthly bill to the group's contact person, who has responsibility for allocating the net-metering credits among group members.
Investor-owned utilities in Maine are required to offer net metering to customers with "shared-ownership" of a PV system. Up to 10 meters can be net metered on a single system, and all participating customers must maintain a legal ownership stake in the system. Like Vermont, the group appoints a contact to serve as the liaison for the utility.
