The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission unanimously rejected a statement Thursday to outlaw all state solar grid measurement policies, a victory for solar industry groups and state policy makers.
The four FERC commissioners voted to dismiss the April request from the New England Rate Payers Association (NERA), which argued that FERC, not states, should have jurisdiction over electricity sales from generators located at customers, like solar energy on the roof.
“We found that the petition does not identify a specific controversy or harm that the commission should address in a declaratory order,” FERC President Neil Chatterjee said at the FERC open meeting on Thursday.
NERA, a New Hampshire-based 501 (c) (4) organization that has not disclosed its sponsors, said FERC should take up the group’s legal argument to assert federal jurisdiction over net metering regulations in 41 states that “offset excess generators distributed at the expense of all other electricity consumers. ”
That stance drew widespread opposition from solar and environmental groups, as well as state regulators and lawmakers, who argued that it could undermine long-standing net metering regimes that are central to state-by-state energy and environmental goals. Comments opposing the proposal were submitted by thousands of individual commenters, 30 state public service commissions and 35 members of Congress, as well as 31 attorneys general from states ranging from Oklahoma to California.
The only publicly disclosed NERA member, Geoffrey Mitchell, a client of the Connecticut utility company Unitil, is a longtime public services consultant and board member of the Ratepayers Legal Defense Fund, an organization founded by the President from NERA, Marc Brown.
The Edison Electric Institute, America’s leading commercial utility group, which has historically opposed the expansion of solar grid metering, declined to support NERA’s request. Members of Congress, including former Democratic presidential candidate for Senator Elizabeth Warren, submitted a letter arguing that the federal law “makes it clear that Congress intended network measurement programs to fall under state jurisdiction, not of the FERC, “and that granting the NERA petition” would nullify long-standing precedent and give the federal government the decision-making power that has long belonged to the states. ”
“The Commission appropriately refused to change decades from its own precedent, and state energy policies in force in more than 40 states and used by more than 2 million retail electricity customers that depend on that precedent, based on a set of hypothetical and generic complaints that failed to provide any fact or circumstance that supports massive federal prevention of state law, “said Jeff Dennis, general counsel and managing director of the Advanced Energy Economy business group, in a statement Thursday.
But the legal issues behind NERA’s request were not addressed in FERC’s Thursday order, said FERC Commissioner Bernard McNamee. While McNamee joined other commissioners to dismiss the petition, he noted that the order issued “does not address any of the significant underlying issues … nor is it a decision on the merits of the issues contained in the petition.”
The decision represents another recent major victory for clean energy. Last week, a federal court upheld FERC Order 841, which requires energy storage assets, including batteries behind the meter, to access federally regulated wholesale energy markets. The order had been rejected by commercial utility groups who argued that it interfered with its authority over assets connected to the distribution network.
“SEIA applauds FERC’s unanimous decision to dismiss this flawed request,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Association of Solar Power Industries, said in a statement. “We will continue to work in the states to strengthen net metering policies to generate more jobs and investment, and we will advocate for fair treatment of solar energy at FERC, where it has jurisdiction.”
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