New Mexican utility proposes rooftop solar tax
The
Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) electric utility wants to hit the
owners of rooftop solar with a tax on new
systems.
PNM
yesterday (Thursday) proposed a rise in electric rates of $107.4 million to
the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission and also
requested a monthly solar rooftop tax of $6/kW to lessen the burden of paying to
connect distributed generation solar which is currently laid on non-solar
households.
According
to the 2014 PNM rate case filing on the utility's website, such a charge would
amount to an interconnection fee of $18-30/month for the average rooftop
system.
The
rate base of $2.4 billion requested by the U.S. state's largest electric power
provider, a rise of $585 million on the last request, in 2010, is needed to pay
for capital investments including the $79 million bill for four new solar
centers by 2016, said PNM in its documents.
Solar
bill more expensive than gas
The
cost of that 40 MW of new solar compares unfavorably with
the $56 million invested in the natural gas plant at La Luz, which will have the
same generation capacity, but is a long way short of the $163 million cost of
buying leases for Unit 2 of the Palo Verde nuclear generating station.
PNM
also admits in its filing that rooftop solar systems have led to a
reduction in costs, along with the energy efficiency measures taken by the
utility and offered by modern appliances and the fall in demand across a state
economy still recovering from the economic crisis.
If
approved, the solar tax would apply to new rooftop systems installed
from 2016 onwards.
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