Save Rooftop Solar: LCEA and Others File Legal Brief to the California Supreme Court on NEM 3.0

 Local Clean Energy Alliance (LCEA), the California Alliance for Community Energy, and 10 other organizations signed onto a “Friends of the Court” amicus brief, filed on December 20, with the California Supreme Court by a legal team at the Environmental Law & Justice Clinic.

The brief is in support of the original petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Environmental Working Group, and Protect Our Communities Foundation. The petition objected to the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Net Energy Metering (NEM) 3.0 decision and the refusal of the CA Appeals Court to consider that case.

The final brief was written by Caroline Farrell, Director of the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic at Golden Gate University, based on information provided by many members of the sign-on organizations, and Caroline Farrell herself.

The amicus brief focuses on the failure of the CPUC’s NEM 3.0 decision to follow the law. By reducing the value of rooftop solar by 75%, NEM 3.0 violates California Public Utilities Code 2827.1, which mandates that any change the CPUC makes to the tariff for rooftop solar “ensures that customer-sited renewable distributed generation continues to grow sustainably and include specific alternatives designed for growth among residential customers in disadvantaged communities.” In fact, the consequences of the NEM 3.0 decision was an immediate downturn in rooftop solar installations and the loss of 17,000 solar installer jobs once the decision went into effect on April 15, 2023.

Furthermore, in conjunction with the disastrous NEM 3.0 decision, the CPUC made cuts to community solar and virtual net energy metering that essentially killed those necessary community local solar programs.

The brief also documents how NEM 3.0 fails to consider all costs and benefits of rooftop solar. Notably absent in the CPUC’s calculation of costs and benefits was the inclusion of social benefits from local rooftop solar, including local job creation, increased economic activity, and clean energy to power local homes and buildings. The CPUC also manipulated their avoided cost calculator to drastically reduce the true cost of long distance transmissions, the most significant energy cost in our bills and savings benefit of rooftop solar.

The original petition by CBD et al. was first filed with the California Appeals Court. However, that court gave "unique deference” to the CPUC, refusing to hear the case.

The date of the CA Supreme Court hearing is yet to be determined. We will share that date as soon as it is released. We encourage attendance to that hearing at the CA Supreme Court.

Read the filing here: LCEA et al. Amicus Brief filed December 20, 2024 - CA Supreme Court