BY BRUCE WARREN
:Los Alamos

My experience as a homeowner who installed solar energy on my house would indicate that Los Alamos County does not truly support green energy. When I applied for a solar energy permit in 2022, I was told I could only install a number of panels that would generate no more than 100% of previous usage. That allowed me to install only eight panels, when I would have installed double that number.

While the 100% figure turned out to be fairly accurate, I could have been generating more solar energy for the County. The next thing the County did to discourage homeowners wishing to invest in solar was the change in compensation for the energy generated by solar. In June 2024 the county started compensating for solar generation at the wholesale rate rather than the retail rate. This is patently unfair because homeowners with solar are not SELLING power to the County, they are REDUCING their use of County energy.

For that reason, the number of kilowatt hours generated by solar should be subtracted from the total usage and the customer charged only for that amount of kilowatt hours. As it stands now homeowners for solar are paying the difference between the wholesale and retail rates for County power they have not used. As an example of this, my most recent bill looked like this:

KWH Rate Charge
Residential Demand Max KW 5.67 1.000000 5.67
Off Peak KWH 178 0.110000 19.58
On Peak KWH 97 0.197000 19.11
Solar KWH 224 -0.077100 -17.27
Service Charge 22.50
Total 49.59

That makes my total usage 5.67+178+97=280.67 KWH. If the solar generation of 224 KWH is
subtracted from that, it is clear that I only used 56.67 KWH of County power. If they charged me $5.67 for the Max KW, that leaves 51 KWH. Even at the On Peak rate, that would come to $9.69, meaning my total bill would be $5.67+$9.69+$22.50= $37.86. That means the County charged me 30% more than they should have. I’m a fairly light user of electricity, but in the past two years that has added up. For homeowners with solar and higher electric consumption, that is a considerable penalty.

If the County truly wants to support green energy, they need to stop overcharging homeowners with solar.

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