Net Energy Metering Program to Change

April 14

BY BREEANA GREENBERG

Homeowners producing solar energy may see a dramatic decrease in the value of credits for solar energy sent back to the electric grid, as California adopts a new net energy metering (NEM) program on April 14.

The new program will change the credit value for solar energy sent back

“One day, a neighbor lady who was a court reporter, she said, ‘What if I were to go get my steno machine and you tell me one of your surf stories from back when,’ ” Bassett said. “That’s where it started.”

Seeing his memories written down gave him the spark to polish the story and continue working on what would become Doheny Crazed.

“That started in 1976,” Bassett said. “But before that, I’d never written anything down. So, it’s a recollection of my time and places and friends and things we did, starting in about the late ’50s.”

“Bringing those recollections back in print and being able to tell these stories in a book form and connect it all together—it’s funny the things we did,” Bassett continued. “The things that we did, when you start writing about it and start making notes, then you’re remembering stuff that you’d forgotten.”

Bassett recalled making a fort on the

San Juan Creek riverbed at 14 years old and camping there throughout the summer after being caught sleeping at Doheny.

“That was our place; we had cooking equipment, we had cots, and for some reason, nobody stole,” Bassett said.

Originally from the City of Orange, Bassett’s fort at San Juan Creek served as his base.

“This was home for me and my friends,” Bassett said. “We weren’t from around here, we didn’t belong here; we were inlanders.”

Bassett also touches on his family life in Doheny Crazed. Bassett’s mother also tandem surfed in the 1930s in the Newport Harbor break before the harbor was built, he said.

After the sudden loss of a young friend in 1965, Bassett said his life changed directions. The book shares stories from Bassett’s many careers: substitute teaching, serving as a firefighter and chief fire officer, and finally shaping surfboards with Mark Johnson of Hobie and friend Terry Martin.

Over the decades, Bassett has watched Doheny change as the city grows.

“Change is inevitable; everything changes,” Bassett said. “You can’t expect something to stay the same. Of course, we’ve got a beautiful harbor here, but you should have seen it before.” to electric grids to incentivize storing excess energy with home batteries, explained Tyler Boden, a solar energy consultant and founder of the San Clemente-based Boden Energy Solutions.

Though Bassett no longer surfs because of arthritis and knee joint replacements, he still dreams of surfing.

Ultimately, Doheny Crazed shares “these stories of us growing up and evolving into a new way, of our interests and what we did, and our bond with surfing, and our place to bond was Doheny,” Bassett said.

Doheny Crazed was published in early March and is available for purchase at the Hobie Shops in Dana Point, San Clemente and Laguna Beach, as well as Stewart Surfboards in San Clemente.

Net Energy Metering 1, created in 1996, gave homeowners full retail value credits per kilowatt hour of solar energy produced and sent back to the utility grid. Under Net Energy Metering 2, which was created in 2016, customers receive full retail credit minus fees for solar energy sent back to the grid.

“Net Metering 3 is changing the dynamic so that the export credit value is far less than retail value in most cases,” Boden said. “It’s based on something called an avoided cost calculator, so that each of the utilities sets its credit value per hour per month, 24 hours in a day, 12 months in a year; they set the credit value per hour.”

With San Diego Gas & Electric, solar energy compensation can drop as low as $0.001 per kilowatt hour sent to the utility grid in April or as high as $2.795 in September.

“The credit value is much less than retail, on average; it’s about a 75% reduction in the value of exported energy statewide,” Boden said.

“The bottom line is, the utilities want to incentivize people not to send them energy, and so this new net metering, or what’s considered net billing structure, will do that by giving people a much lower credit value for exporting energy to the grid,” Boden continued.

Instead, Boden explained, homeowners will be incentivized to store their solar energy with a home battery to offset their energy consumption during the peak time of use billing, generally between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

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“In general, that will help to save people more money than if they were sending energy back to the grid,” Boden said. “So, that’s really where batteries will be valuable, and that’s exactly what the (California Public Utilities Commission) and the utilities are trying to incentivize people to do, is to add storage along with solar so that they’re sending less energy back to the grid.”

Energy companies want to incentivize homeowners to send less energy to the grid, because the companies incur costs while selling excess energy and supplying energy after sundown.

“During the day, when so much solar is being generated and sent onto the grid, they sometimes have to sell that to neighboring states at a discount, and I think even sometimes negative value,” Boden said. “In the evening, when the sun comes down, they have to generate all the energy to supply the demand during the ramp up when the sun is coming down and people are using more energy.”

Homeowners who submit a complete application by 11:59 p.m. on April 14 are considered grandfathered into NEM 2 for 20 years from the date they receive permission to operate their solar systems. Those grandfathered in will receive full retail credit minus fees for energy sent to the grid. Since the return on investment for energy credits will be much lower for those not grandfathered into the previous net metering, Boden added that some homeowners may decide to add solar storage or a solar system that does not fully offset their electric usage. To be considered grandfathered in, homeowners will have to submit a completed interconnection application to their utility company, including a

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