Commission addresses varied Arizona energy topics

The Arizona Corporation Commission addressed a series of topics during its monthly Open Meeting, including a decision involving a pair of utility company solar customers.

Commission officials said the body approved Tucson Electric Power Company (TEP) and UNS Electric, Inc.’s (UNS Electric) application for Phase 2 rates relating to solar net-metering customers in Arizona.

TEP serves 415,000 customers in Pima County and UNS Electric services 95,000 customers in Santa Cruz and Mohave Counties. Both companies filed rate increase applications with the Corporation Commission in 2015.

Phase I of the application process approved rates for all customers except residential and small commercial distributed generation customers while Phase II addressed rates, rate design and the effective export rate for excess solar production for distributed generation customers who connect their rooftop systems after the effective date of the decision.

The Phase 1 Decision for UNS Electric was effective Aug. 18, 2016, while the Phase I Decision for TEP was effective Feb. 24, 2017.

The Commission also voted to implement export rates for TEP and UNS Electric of $0.0964 for TEP and $0.115 for UNS Electric, officials said, adding the Phase 2 proceedings determined the rates applicable to new distributed generation customers who will have the option of selecting from existing Time-of-Use rate schedules.