SolarCity gets no say in Nevada grandfathering case

Solar installer SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) will not be allowed to participate in the proceedings that will decide whether solar customers in Nevada as of December 2015 would be protected from rate changes.

In a press release Wednesday, the company expressed its disappointment with the “unprecedented procedural action” and pointed out that it has been fighting for the grandfathering of solar customers since day one. The decision to exclude SolarCity has been taken by a Nevada Public Utilities Commissioner.

“The Presiding Officer has excluded the one party that the people of Nevada actually chose of their own volition, their solar provider,” said SolarCity chief policy officer Jon Wellinghoff.

Before Christmas 2015, the Nevada PUC approved, based on recommendations by NV Energy, a new scheme for net metering, lifting the utility service charge for small solar owners and reducing the credits paid to them for power sent to the grid. It is yet to be decided whether solar customers that joined the net metering programme before that decision would be grandfathered.

SolarCity said it “fully expects” Nevada solar customers to be grandfathered. This means they will lock in the more favourable terms for a specific period, which could be as long as 20 years.

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