The largest solar installer in the U.S., SolarCity, said on Wednesday that it will stop selling and installing solar panels on rooftops across Nevada after the state’s regulator approved a new plan to add fees and lower compensation for owners of home and commercial solar systems.
SolarCity’s SCTY 0.97% CEO Lyndon Rive called the new changes, which would take effect Jan. 1,, and would retroactively apply to the state’s 12,000 solar owners, “unethical, unprecedented, and possibly unlawful.” Rive said the Nevada Public Utility Commission’s decision would “damage the state’s economy, and jeopardize thousands of jobs.”
The state regulator’s decision is the latest move in the complicated landscape of how utilities, and the states they operate in, are adjusting to the emergence of solar panels on the rooftops of their customers. Utilities, like Nevada’s NV Energy, argue that solar customers aren’t paying their fair share for upkeep of the power grid, and have benefited from overly high compensation for the solar electricity they produce.
Other utilities like Arizona’s Salt River Project have approved similar extra fees for solar customers, but […]
