N.S. Solar Industry ‘Over The Moon’ With New Legislation
HALIFAX-When NS Power announced earlier this year, to the anger of many, that they wanted to charge solar users additional fees, the solar industry felt an immediate chill, one that is being felt by suppliers months later.
Lyle Goldberg, the Atlantic rep for the supplier Charge Solar, recalls what happened just a day later.
“When it was announced that they were going to impose the fee, the next day I lost $50,000 worth of orders,” said Goldberg, who also sits on the board of Solar Nova Scotia. “It was a huge impact.”
Even after the provincial government announced it would intervene with legislation (and NS Power withdrew its application from the Utility Review Board), the chill effect remained. Many people were wary about buying solar, fearing new fees after they made the energy switch.
“Solar businesses have been hurt a little bit, without a doubt,” said Goldberg.
But there is renewed hope that the chill will thaw after the government tabled its new legislation on the first day of the spring sitting. The new bill makes sweeping changes for solar users on the net-metering program.
More importantly, the bill forbids NS Power from introducing new fees to solar customers. Also, for installations under 27 kW, the government will directly control the net-metering program.
Goldberg says the new bill also gets rid of “red tape,” making it easier for solar installers to do business.
“I’m to the moon, I’m totally thrilled,” he said.
“Solar NS made a submission with a number of recommendations and the province really came through – I’m really impressed.”
For solar installers, there was another piece to the legislation that could create more demand for solar power amongst commercial and industrial clients. Gone is the old 100 kW cap on larger solar projects. Goldberg said this cap has been a hurdle in the past for solar installers, and clients looking to go greener.
“A lot of them had to fall under 100 KW, even though they wanted to do larger. But they were stifled by the legislation.”
“Bottomline is, if you’re a commercial or industrial customer, it would be nice to offset 100 per cent of your load. Whether that’s 500 kW or 700, it shouldn’t matter, as long as they’re not over-producing.”
Asked why a cap would exist, at all, on large solar projects, Goldberg claimed the reasons are twofold.
“I think some of the utilities are worried that their electrical systems couldn’t handle the extra load. The other part is, they’re just not huge fans of solar,” said Goldberg. “There was a trend across the country to reduce the size of solar systems.”
“If you look at Atlantic Canada, it’s almost a 100 kW cap in every province. I don’t think there was a lot of consultation given.”
If there is one part of the legislation that may irk net-metering customers, it’s that it will not allow those who overproduce electricity to make a profit by selling back into the grid. The government has reiterated that the best customers can do is zero out their bills.
But Goldberg says this isn’t a big deal for most installers or solar users.
“There has to be give-and-take in this process, and that wasn’t a hill for us to die on – to oversize your system to make money. That’s not what net-metering is about,” he said.
“We should be sizing systems appropriately and not oversizing them. And I think that was the point of the legislation. If you’re going to spend all this extra money on oversizing your system, you’re wasting your money, because you’re not going to see that back in credit.”
For most solar users, it’s a moot point. Given the long winters and cloud cover in Nova Scotia, most net-metering customers rely, partially, on the grid as backup.
“We’re always going to rely on the grid,” said Goldberg. “We’re going to see a move, also, to battery backup storage while being tied to the grid. But right now, batteries are still pretty pricey, to be frank, but we will see that come down.”
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].