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Elon Musk slams California’s proposal to Cut Solar Subsidies

SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer Award on December 1, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. GETTY IMAGES

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Elon Musk slams California’s proposal to Cut Solar Subsidies

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Some environmentalists, Hollywood celebs, and business leaders, including Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk, have criticized a proposal in California to reduce incentives for rooftop solar power.

Musk called California’s legislation a “bizarre anti-environment move by govt of California.”

Musk tweeted a link to a Tesla webpage where people can write a message to Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Public Utilities Commission encouraging them to oppose the plan, which would impose additional “grid access” fees on solar users. The site claims that “if adopted, this would be the highest solar fee anywhere in the country, including states hostile to renewable energy.”

Tesla has a financial motive to oppose the CPUC proposal. Tesla Energy, the company’s green energy division, invests in solar electricity. It sells solar panels and solar energy storage batteries. Tesla purchased SolarCity Corp., a solar-power provider, in 2016.

The CPUC’s contentious NEM 3.0 plan, set to be voted on later this month, imposes fees on solar and battery storage users, raising the cost of solar and storage. The bill credit solar consumers receive for selling power back to the grid would be reduced under NEM 3.0. On January 3, Electrek reported:

“The credit for energy that residential solar owners put back into the grid would be slashed to a wholesale rate of about $0.04 per kWh.

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In addition to cutting net metering rates, the NEM 3.0 plan includes a new set monthly charge of $8 per kW of solar put on a roof for solar owners.

It implies that someone with a 10 kW system will have to pay their electric company $80 per month only to stay connected to the grid and send power back at a new lower rate.

Before the vote, Newsom acknowledged at a news conference this week that the idea would need to be changed.

Musk isn’t the only one who opposes the idea. It has also been pulled apart by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club. “Collectively, these changes will devastate California’s rooftop solar market, which is essential for meeting our climate goals,” the organization said in a statement.

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