The state has long led the nation in the adoption of rooftop solar panels, and today more than 1.5 million California homes and other buildings have them. Under a decades-old program, people with solar panels can get paid by their power companies by sharing excess solar energy they don't need, leading some solar homes to pay minimal electric bills.
That's led to criticism that rooftop solar customers aren't paying their fair share into the rest of the energy grid, which many still rely on for power when the sun goes down. Power rates also include things like transmission equipment and wildfire prevention work, and regulators approve a set amount of money that utilities can recover from customers.
Although solar provides a lot of California's power during the day, fossil fuels largely take over in the evening and during the night. Sometimes, California has more solar power than it can use during the day. Existing rooftop systems are capable of generating about 12,000 megawatts of power, according to the commission, nearly six times what the state's last remaining nuclear plant generates.
The fight over the solar changes has gone on for nearly two years, pitting the state's three major utilities against the solar industry, with many environmental groups caught somewhere in between. The changes will apply only to customers of Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, which collectively serve a majority of customers in the states. They would not affect people who already have rooftop solar.
The solar industry disputes that number, saying it doesn't account for the benefits that rooftop solar provides for everyone, like making the grid more resilient and reducing the need for utilities to build more costly legacy power equipment.
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