The California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) has a formal complaint On August 28 at the California Public Utilities Commission with regard to customer service that is far below the set standards on the basis of the largest two utilities of the State. The complaint requires a fine of $ 10 million against Pacific Gas & Electric and South California Edison.
Customers who want to install solar panels and batteries must be approved by utilities to install the equipment. Aunts assess interconnection applications and ensure that transformers and other parts of the electric grid are large enough to tackle all the energy that the customers send to the utilities. The State is obliged that tools are performing various steps in that assessment process within specified timelines.
PG&E and SCE ignore those timelines routinely and cause extensive delays for solar installations, says Calssa. This increases the costs for consumers, because they balance the financing and construction costs and cannot lower their energy sales of the utilities until they receive utility permission to use their equipment.
“There are clear rules on how long the utilities can last for their assessment, but there is no enforcement of those rules,” said Kevin Luo, manager of policy and market development for Calssa. “PG&E and SCE get away with suppressing what they regard as their competition.”
The California Public Utilities Commission has established a standard in 2020 that utilities meet the established timelines for 95% of the projects and the utilities ordered to submit every three -month reports about their performance. These reports show that three steps of the assessment process have compliance figures up to 27 to 45%, and timelines for three other steps are paid at only 53 to 81% of the time. These rates have not improved over the years since the 2020 order.
“It is clear that if PG&E and SCE are not held responsible, they will continue to ignore the requirements that are meant to have them offer a reasonable customer service,” Luo added.
CALSSA expects a judge of the administrative rights to the State Committee to revise the complaint in the coming months and determine whether fines are justified.
News item from the California Solar & Storage Association
