Wyoming lawmakers reject updating decades-old net metering rules
Wyoming lawmakers recently failed to advance a pair of bills that proposed updating the state’s net metering system, an anomaly compared to a number of other states that have reached agreement on net metering reforms.
The legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee had considered two different bills that would have changed the state’s net metering rules in a meeting on Nov. 19. Committee members rejected the bills in a 7-7 vote, which meant the legislation would not be introduced in the Legislature next year.
Net metering is a billing mechanism that credits residential and business customers who generate excess electricity from solar power and send it back to the grid. The current net metering rules in Wyoming state that utilities “shall not charge a customer generator any fee or charge that would increase the customer generator’s minimum monthly charge to an amount greater than that of other customers of the electric utility in the same rate class as the customer generator.”
The first of the two bills considered by the committee would have repealed the state’s current net metering rules, and the second would have removed the net metering rates paid by non-net metering customers, as well as requiring net metering customers to buy back from utilities the energy they produced at full retail rates.
Wyoming took the opposite stance compared to other states that have been repealing or revising their net metering rules.
Kentucky recently passed a law allowing the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) to adjust the net metering rates on a case-by-case basis for utilities, which will likely affect the amount that private solar customers will receive. Utilities will individually present before the PSC with their hard costs and other budgeting factors before receiving their unique rates.
Idaho Power also recently settled with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (IPUC) about their net metering rates. That settlement said that net-metered energy will now be measured on a net hourly basis, rather than net monthly basis. Customers will also be compensated at a set rate, rather than the current retail rate, with the transition to the new rate happening between 2022 and 2028.
Idaho and Kentucky are just two states tackling net metering changes.
“A lot of the incentive programs haven’t been touched in decades. When you do that it’s ripe for policy discussions,” said Brydon Ross, vice president of State Affairs at the Consumer Energy Alliance. “It also can create some tensions. One of our concerns going forward is: are our incentive policies keeping pace with where the market is and where reality is in certain states?”
A number of the states that have begun to look at decades-old net metering rules have implemented changes to those rules. Depending on how a state originally set up its net metering system, cost-shifting may be an issue for utilities when it comes to distribution and other costs, Ross said. Cost-shifting refers to power grid infrastructure costs being shifted to those customers without rooftop solar through higher utility bills.
Ross and his team asked the Kentucky PSC to look at the renewable incentive program and find a middle ground for all stakeholders.
In an October letter to the editor published in The State Journal newspaper in Kentucky, Ross wrote, “The bottom line is that private solar customers need to pay their share of grid maintenance costs like every other electric utility customer. The old law, written 15 years ago, needs updating reflecting the big changes solar has undergone. Regulators in states like California and Hawaii have updated their policies to ensure they are on a responsible path. Kentucky should too.”
Ross told Daily Energy Insider that, “We want to make sure everything is being fairly allocated — while we are continuing to incentivize people to have the ability to offset their energy use and grow solar,” he said. “That’s the needle we try to thread and we think there’s middle ground on those discussions.”
