September 7, 2018 • Local News
Santa Fe New Mexican: PRC votes to kill ‘standby fee’ charged to Eastern New Mexico customers
In a 4-1 vote Wednesday, the state Public Regulation Commission decided to do away with a fee that a major electric company in Eastern New Mexico charges owners of rooftop solar energy systems.
The vote came weeks after a hearing officer recommended the commission make Southwestern Public Service Co. stop collecting the “standby fee” from customers with solar systems, saying a study the utility used to justify the charge was “riddled with errors and unreliable.”
The commission also ruled Southwestern Public Service must reimburse customers more than $10 million over the next 18 months. That’s how much the company has saved since the federal tax cut bill went into effect in January.
Voting in favor of approving the order were Commissioners Patrick Lyons, R-Cuervo; Valerie Espinoza, D-Santa Fe; Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint; and Cynthia Hall, D-Albuquerque.
Commissioner Sandy Jones, D-Williamsburg, cast the only opposing vote. He said Southwestern Public Service, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, has made “significant investments” in New Mexico, including a large wind farm in Eastern New Mexico.
“They didn’t do coal or other things everyone thinks is horrible,” Jones said. “They did wind.”
The utility had sought an 11.6 percent increase in the solar fee, which intervenors in the rate case say currently averages about $28 a month. The charge, which has been in effect since 2010, has stunted the solar industry in Eastern New Mexico, critics say.
Megan O’Reilly, a Taos lawyer representing the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy — which, along with a group called Vote Solar, intervened in the rate case — said last month there are only 110 solar customers, a mere fraction of the Public Service Company of New Mexico’s 12,379 customers with solar energy systems (11,820 residential and 559 commercial) and the 2,766 interconnected solar systems in El Paso Electric’s New Mexico service territory as of last year.
Environmentalists have said that if the commission allowed the solar fee to remain, it might tempt other utilities such as PNM and El Paso Electric to impose such surcharges on their own customers.
Southwestern Public Service claimed in documents filed with the commission the fee is necessary because the company must maintain standby capacity to serve solar customers any time their sun-powered systems don’t generate enough energy. The company argued all parts of its system are necessary to maintain reliability.
The company contended prohibiting the fee would mean other customers who pay to maintain the utility’s system would in effect be subsiding those with solar systems.
But hearing officer Carolyn Glick wrote that the company failed to demonstrate the surcharge “appropriately recovers the costs of ancillary and standby services” used by solar customers or that the fee is “based in any actual difference in costs the company incurs to serve [solar] customers.”
Southwestern Public Service can’t show it “provides distinct ‘standby service’ for [solar] customers that it does not already provide to all full-requirements customers,” Glick wrote.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/prc-votes-to-kill-standby-fee-charged-to-eastern-new/article_fca26f37-bcc8-5738-935a-a18a23b831b1.html
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