TITLE:
The Economics of Residential Solar and Battery Storage: Analyzing the California Public Utilities Commission Decision of December 2022
AUTHORS:
Prashanth Nyer, Charu Sinha
KEYWORDS:
Solar Panels, Battery, Net Metering, Net Billing Tariff, NEM, NBT, California
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.13 No.5,
May
31,
2023
ABSTRACT: California
Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is the California state governmental organization that
regulates privately owned natural gas, water, electric, telecommunications,
rail transit, railroad, and passenger transportation companies. In December
2022, the CPUC announced the latest rules—the net billing tariff (NBT) that
will decide how excess solar energy generated by customers of the three major
investor-owned utilities (IOU) will be compensated for. These decisions were
made after a multi-year process during which the CPUC heard opinions from many
interest groups, including customers with and without solar installations,
IOUs, solar industry groups, environmental
groups etc. In this paper, we will summarize the decisions made by the CPUC in December 2022, and
we will discuss how they differ from the past programs approved by the CPUC, and what
the latest decisions mean for the economics of residential solar installations, and the
implications for future policy making.