genability.com | Tariff News

Notice on SMUD Tariff R-TOD-SSR, March - July 2022

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (“SMUD”) introduced a new Solar and Storage tariff for solar customers (Rate Schedule “R-TOD-SSR”), which took effect on March 1, 2022. SMUD published documentation regarding the revised tariff structure on their website: https://www.smud.org/-/media/Documents/Rate-Information/Rates/01_SSR.ashx
genability.com | Tariff News

California Net Energy Metering 3.0 (NEM3)

California is updating its Net Energy Metering policies in 2022, commonly referred to as NEM3.0. Genability customers can rely on Genability providing full support for them. Ahead of the publication of the final NEM 3 tariffs and rates, Genability has publishing a set of Tariffs with the latest proposed rate structures for customers to use. Once details are available, the finalized tariffs and rates will be published for all to use. In this blog post we track updates as the policies and rate changes firm up. We recommend checking back hear from time to time to get the lastest.
genability.com | Company

Whats new with Genability

Like many companies, the start of a new year is a time when Genability’s goals and objectives are updated and plans are set in motion. Here’s a summary of what we are up to in 2021.
genability.com | Tariff News

California Residential Electricity Rate Changes - January 2020

Southern California Edison (SCE), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) all released new tariff rates on January 1, 2020 improving the economics of residential solar for all three utilities.
genability.com | Products

Solar Incentives Data

Genability Switch customers no longer need to maintain their own database of residential solar incentives. As of October 15, 2019 Genability’s Solar Incentives API has graduated from Beta to V1 and is now available under general release for Switch customers that wish to license it. We’ve also built a new user interface within Switch’s Dash web application to view this data along with your savings analyses.
genability.com | Tariff News

Review of Southern California Edison's New Post Solar Electricity Rates and its Impact on Savings

On March 1, 2019 Southern California Edison (SCE) will close its current default post-solar tariff (TOU-D-A-NEM2) and replace it with a new default post-solar tariff (TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2). This tariff change will dramatically impact solar savings in SCE as the Time of Use (TOU) On-Peak hours move from 2-8 PM under TOU-D-A-NEM2 to 4-9 PM under TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2. More importantly TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 introduces a Super Off-Peak period in the Winter from 8 AM to 4 PM, when the majority of solar production occurs.
genability.com | Products

Savings Analysis API Support for Non-bypassable Charges

Genability has just upgraded both our Savings Analysis API and our Calculate API to better support Non-Bypassable Charges (NBCs). What are NBCs you ask? Well that’s how the California utilities refer to the customer’s annual NBCs that cannot be offset by Net Energy Metering (NEM) Credits under NEM 2.0. These NBCs behave as a second minimum charge calculation that’s performed during the customer’s annual true-up.
genability.com | Tariff News

Review of California's Proposed Commercial Time of Use Electricity Tariffs

In 2019, both Pacific Gas & Electric (PGE) and Southern California Edison (SCE) will introduce new Time-of-Use (TOU) periods for commercial tariffs. Both utilities are moving highly-priced peak hours later in the day, from mid-afternoon to 4-9 PM. If you are selling solar, storage and/or energy efficiency in California, you want to be sure to calculate savings using these new tariffs. Thanks to Genability’s new Proposed Tariffs product for enterprise customers, now you can!
genability.com | Products

Proposed Tariffs included in Genability database

Our Proposed Tariffs feature allows you to use our complete set of tools to calculate the costs and savings of tariffs that are not yet published and live.
genability.com | Products

Genability Adds Support for PVWatts Version 6

We’ve added support for Version 6 of NREL’s PVWatts API, used to estimate the hourly production of a customer’s solar PV system.
genability.com | Products

Explorer Web App for Energy Professionals

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of our latest product, Genability Explorer, a web-application for Energy Professionals.
genability.com | Tariff News

Solar Incentives in Illinois, Net Metering Ends for Duke Energy South Carolina

The roller coaster for solar in the U.S. (call it a Solar Coaster?) keeps rolling this summer.  The state of Illinois has finalized the credit values for its Adjustable Block Program, which provides solar owners with an upfront payment for 15 years of estimated solar production.  Meanwhile, in South Carolina the state legislature failed to increase the net metering cap and Duke Energy has met its 2% limit. Starting on August 1, 2018 full net metering closes for Duke Energy SC customers and will be replaced by the Purchased Power Rider. First the good news for solar developers:
genability.com | Tariff News

Solar Incentives in Massachusetts

Later this year, Massachusetts will close out it’s SREC program replacing it with the new Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) incentives. While there are still a few details left to be finalized, Genability is able to model the proposed SMART incentives for our customers and has made the new incentives available via the Incentives API.
genability.com | Tariff News

Duke Energy North Carolina Solar Incentives

At 9 AM this morning (July 9, 2018), Duke Energy North Carolina started accepting incentive applications for their Solar Rebate program and Genability has made the new incentive available via our Incentives API.
genability.com | Company

Genability Open for Business for Commercial Energy Customers

We have an exciting announcement. Genability is now open for business to any and all new energy companies servicing commercial and industrial customers. Today we have lifted all restrictions that might have prevented you from working with us in the past.
genability.com | Tariff News

Hawaiian Smart Export and Customer Grid Supply Solar Programs

Starting on 2/20/2018, the three Hawaiian investor-owned utilities will offer two new programs for customers with solar: Customer Grid Supply Plus and Smart Export. Both programs offer export credits for power provided to the grid, an option that has not been available in Hawaii since the Customer Grid Supply programs closed in 2017. Genability has just made these two programs available for Hawaiian Electric Co (HECO), Hawaiian Electric Light Co (HELCO) and Maui Electric Co (MECO) for use in your solar proposals.
genability.com | Products

Estimating Energy Usage from Customer’s Bill Amount

Do you have a potential solar customer’s 12 months of bills or their annual bill amount for electricity? If so, we can now estimate energy usage from that information!
genability.com | Tariff News

New York Public Service Commission Guidelines on Presenting Solar Savings

Effective December 1, 2017, solar developers in New York are required by the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) to meet precise guidelines (PDF Download) when presenting savings estimates.  Genability has reviewed these requirements and we have made some data upgrades for New York so that our solar customers can comply with these new requirements without any change to their API integration.  First, let’s review the new savings requirement:
genability.com | Products

Run Down of Genability Developer Website Updates

A quick rundown of the latest and greatest updates on GDN, our developer website.
genability.com | Tariff News

The Methodology Behind our Monthly Residential Rates Newsletter

Every month Genability updates thousands of tariffs. These changes can be as small as a simple rate increase or as large as a whole new rate structure. For just over a year now, around the 10th of each month, we have sent out a summary of those changes in our Monthly Residential Rate newsletter to help our customers better understand and anticipate these changes.
Industry

California NEM 2.0 and Hawaii Customer Grid Supply Post Solar Electricity Rate Programs

By

| Reading time 6 minutes

Update: On June 23, 2016 the CPUC revised an earlier decision and determined that “imports and exports to the grid shall be netted within the metered interval and non-bypassable charges should only be charged on the net import from the grid in the metered interval (Resolution E-4792).” Genability Switch results for NEM 2.0 markets will not utilize coincident import & export features described below. We will enable this feature for markets where exports are assigned differential value on a real-time basis.

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New regulatory policy and corresponding tariff changes in California and Hawaii mean more complexity in forecasting solar savings. Genability has you covered. We’ve added enhancements as part of Switch Version 4 to improve your savings analyses amidst these new rules. This includes new algorithms to determine how much energy is exported to the grid at any time during the day, all without any additional changes to your quoting platform or sales process.

Markets Potentially Affected by Dual Register Metering

California Investor Owned Utility (IOU)

Encouraged by the existing Net Energy Metering (NEM 1.0) program, California has led the way in rooftop solar growth over the last few years. Under this program most Californians going solar receive full retail credit for energy their solar system exports to the electricity grid.

In January of this year the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the framework for a successor to the existing NEM 1.0 program, referred to as NEM 2.0. This will roll out to new solar customers over the next year as each of the three California IOU utilities reaches its existing program cap. With NEM 2.0, new solar customers still receive retail credits for most charges on their bill. However, a number of so-called non-bypassable charges are no longer rolled back at full retail rate when solar energy is exported to the grid. These fees fund public projects such as nuclear decommissioning and are typically a small part of your bill. Also under NEM 2.0, new solar customers are required to switch to a Time of Use (TOU) plan (whose rates vary by time of day), except in SDG&E where mandatory TOU requirements are on hold until a later date.

Switch customers can now model customer savings using both California’s NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0 systems and receive the industry’s most accurate savings forecasts. The difference in savings between the two NEM programs depends on a customer’s electricity usage patterns and the corresponding size and energy production of their solar system.

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Note that anyone interconnected before the cap expires will remain on the NEM 1.0 rates for 20 years following their interconnection date.

Aloha State Rate Changes and Export Limits (HECO, MECO, HELCO)

California is not the only state that has historically benefited from NEM but is now experiencing some big changes. In Hawaii, high electricity prices drove one in four single family homes to have rooftop solar. In aggregate all these installations can intermittently export large amounts of energy back to the electricity grid. Citing grid stability concerns, Hawaiian Electric Company ended their  NEM program to all new residential solar customers last year.  Similar to California, existing NEM customers will be grandfathered for 20 years from their interconnection date.

What’s replaced it? New solar customers in Hawaii now have two choices. Option one is called Customer Self Supply (CSS), is very different from NEM, and is truly a first for the solar industry in the US. Any home adopting the CSS tariff cannot export any electricity to the grid. In practice this means the home must also install energy storage or other approved load shedding technology to store excess energy produced by the solar system. To encourage this, homes will receive expedited interconnection.

Option two is Customer Grid Supply (CGS) which is similar to what it’s replacing, in that exported energy does generate credits. However, these credits do not add up to full retail rates, and are only guaranteed for 2 years. There is a very low cap on how many systems can qualify for CGS, the tariff will likely close in late summer of this year.

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CGS customers will have dual register metering systems installed as part of interconnection. This will accurately track two values over time; i) the amount imported by the home from the grid, and ii) the amount the home exported to the grid.  

Genability Now Handles Coincident Export & Import

We’ve updated Switch to support changes in Hawaii and California. A critical part of supporting these policy changes is intelligently forecasting how much energy is exported into the grid at any point in time. We’re now able to determine coincident import and export values without having granular consumption and production data.

At any moment in time, a home with rooftop solar could be either importing or exporting from/to the grid. The home will import electricity when all the appliances, HVAC, etc. are consuming more energy than the solar system is generating in that instant. Similarly, the home exports energy when the solar system produces more than the home is using in that instant. Coincident is how much solar production lines up with electricity usage in that instance. Under full retail rate NEM this wasn’t important because a home would get the same rate credit for exports and rate charges for imports. These new tariffs credit exported energy at a new lower rate, so it’s important to accurately forecast the two separately.

With this upgrade, Switch calculates coincidence and determines import and export levels. We take usage and solar production values for each hour in a year, and forecast how this will translate into the amount imported and the amount exported during that hour. Our algorithm takes into account the relative size of the load vs solar production as well as the inherent variability in both. For instance, in late evening when the sun is setting and homeowners are back from work, the algorithm may predict all solar goes toward offsetting usage – i.e., 0 kWh exported – since production is much lower than consumption with little variability. However, for certain hours when consumption and production are similar, as is common in the mornings, the Savings Analysis call will carefully calculate how much usage is imported, how much solar goes to offset usage, and how much solar is exported to the grid.

Despite the complexities introduced by assigning different values to self-consumed vs. exported electricity, Genability Switch still gives accurate savings forecasts. This is made possible by accounting for the fact that household load and solar production may not be equal every minute, even if net export is 0 over the course of an hour.

How Can I Take Advantage of These Upgrades?

For those already using Switch, no additional parameters need to be specified in Savings Analysis calls to model the coincident import/export pricing – you only have to ensure that your call references the correct post-solar tariff (e.g., PG&E’s E-TOU-A or E-TOU-B). These calculations support the usual monthly consumption values by taking advantage of our Intelligent Baselining feature.  Genability will continue to track policy changes in California and elsewhere to ensure that Switch calculates savings accurately and always per released tariffs.

Creating Savings Analyses under California’s NEM 2.0 and grid export systems in Hawaii are just a few of the powerful new additions in Switch V4. You can learn all about Switch here.

For those not using Genability’s Switch API, we’re happy to show how this and other Switch v4 upgrades can help your team. Contact sales to set up a demo of Switch.

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