Virginia Hearing Examiner Recommends Rejecting APCo PPA Rider, Says PPAs Legal
Earlier today, Deborah V. Ellenberg, Chief Hearing Examiner in the APCo PPA Rider (PUE-2015-00040) proceeding discussed earlier, recommended rejecting APCo’s proposed rider as not in the public interest. As a reminder, this was the tariff that APCo proposed in 2015 which would require a customer interested in a solar PPA to first pay for 100% of their service under the standard tariff, pay for 100% of the solar energy generated, pay a $30 program fee, and receive excess payments back through a Renewable Output Credit. The report also concurs with arguments made by several intervening parties that:
- Behind-the-meter PPAs are already legal under existing Virginia law in APCo’s territory;
- Solar customer-generators who participate in net metering through Virginia Code Section 56-594 can do so as owners of a solar project or through contracts with a third-party; and
- The 100% renewable energy language in Section 56-577 refers solely to the energy purchased from a third-party provider, not to all of the energy used by the customer on site.
Please note that this is a recommendation to the Commission and not a final order. The Commission can accept, reject, or modify it. The Commission in the Remington case (PUE-2015- 00006), for example, rejected the Hearing Examiner’s recommendation.
This post is a follow up piece to an earlier blog post which can be found here.