A 25-panel rooftop solar power array.Tucson Electric Power Friday dropped a request to let it pay customers less for their surplus solar-generated electricity.
The utility, which serves most Tucson area homes and businesses, said in a press release that it will reintroduce the request as part of a proposal for higher electricity rates in 2017.
That was the recommendation of the Arizona Corporation Commission staff earlier this month following a public hearing on TEP's proposal.
Under it, the utility wanted to lower from 11 cents to 5.8 cents what it pays for a kilowatt-hour of electricity from residential customers installing new solar on their houses. The rate for what is called "net metering" would stay the same for customers who already have solar arrays.
The change would bring solar to what TEP called "fair market pricing."
"We’ll be proposing rates that recover our service costs more equitably, allowing us to expand our use of solar energy while preserving reliable, affordable electric service for everyone,” the press release quoted TEP CEO David G. Hutchens as saying.
TEP said its customers who don't produce their own solar electricity and thus don't have any to sell to the utility are subsidizing those who do.
Solar proponents argued that rooftop solar production reduces the need for utility capital investment in the larger electricity grid infrastructure by expanding capacity one household at a time.
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