Mar. 8—The New Mexico Supreme Court docket will hear arguments Monday over rules for the state’s neighborhood photo voltaic program, with the state’s three investor-owned utilities difficult the principles whereas photo voltaic advocates say the utilities are solely making an attempt to guard their monopoly.
The listening to is available in a string of battles between the 2 sides, clashes that started within the Legislature and have continued all through the yearslong technique of implementing this system by the New Mexico Public Regulation Fee.
The utilities have argued the principles violate state regulation, together with a prohibition on subtracting transmission prices from neighborhood photo voltaic invoice credit. One authorized temporary filed within the case says the principles enable different clients, together with non-subscribers to neighborhood photo voltaic, to subsidize interconnection prices.
Their opponents, in a courtroom submitting, referred to as the businesses’ arguments “not more than coverage disagreements with the laws” and stated they “don’t elevate precise authorized errors.”
The neighborhood photo voltaic program was created to permit electrical clients to subscribe to small-scale, third-party photo voltaic tasks that will lower prices from their month-to-month energy payments. The tasks are aimed specifically at offering the service to low-income ratepayers and renters who lack entry to rooftop photo voltaic panels.
This system was established by the Group Photo voltaic Act, authorized by the Legislature and signed into regulation in 2021. Former commissioners in March 2022 finalized and authorized guidelines for this system, designating the construction of charges and invoice credit.
The three privately owned utilities — Southwestern Public Service Co., El Paso Electrical Co. and Public Service Firm of New Mexico — filed 4 lawsuits interesting elements of the Public Regulation Fee’s guidelines and implementation of this system. These 4 instances have been rolled into one by a courtroom order.
The utility corporations, the fee and advocacy and commerce teams will ship oral arguments Monday morning, and justices are anticipated to rule on the enchantment someday after the listening to.
The events within the enchantment declined to touch upon the case.
Legal professional and former Public Regulation Commissioner Jason Marks is ready to ship arguments for the assorted teams that intervened within the enchantment, together with the Coalition for Clear Reasonably priced Power, New Power Financial system, the Renewable Power Industries Affiliation of New Mexico, the Coalition for Group Photo voltaic Entry, the Coalition of Sustainable Communities of New Mexico and the town of Las Cruces.
Legal professional Erin LeCocq will ship arguments for the fee, and Southwestern Public Service Co. lawyer Dana Hardy will argue on behalf of the utilities.
The Supreme Court docket has declined to halt this system’s implementation because the case proceeds. In January, justices denied a request from the businesses to concern a keep on the fee’s guidelines.
In the meantime, neighborhood photo voltaic has moved ahead: In Could 2023, commissioners authorized 45 tasks all through the state totaling 200 megawatts of vitality. The tasks have been chosen from an applicant pool of greater than 400 proposals.
In 2022 and 2023, commissioners rejected proposed neighborhood photo voltaic agreements or price schedules from all three investor-owned utilities, with former commissioners slamming the utilities’ makes an attempt to implement pointless charges for this system.
In a press release to commissioners, state Sen. Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, a yearslong champion of neighborhood photo voltaic in New Mexico, wrote the “value shift” from photo voltaic system house owners to different utility clients is a fantasy propagated by investor-owned utilities.
“The utilities see buyer rooftop photo voltaic and neighborhood photo voltaic as a menace to their monopoly enterprise,” Stefanics wrote. “For the IOUs, it means clients are shopping for much less electrical energy from them.”
Stefanics urged the Supreme Court docket to reject the utilities’ request to halt the neighborhood photo voltaic program. She wrote that the investor-owned utilities’ objective is to “gradual deployment and implementation of neighborhood photo voltaic as a result of it introduces competitors with the monopoly utility enterprise mannequin.”
