Dane County judge strikes down WE Energies new fees for customers with solar systems

On October 30th, 2015, a Dane County Circuit Court judge ruled that WE Energies is not allowed to assess extra fees on customers that generate some of their own electricity with home solar systems. This is a key example of traditional government using its power to further environmental sustainability and solidify renewable energy as a viable option for the near future. The charge imposed by WE Energies was supposed to be a so-called “rate-fairness” policy intended to make up for revenue lost to consumer generation. However, it appears far more like a punitive measure meant to discourage decentralized power sources outside of the power utility companies' monopolies. The program was widely unpopular with a broad section of the general population. The extra fees were to begin next year, but will not be implemented as things are currently. The lawsuit was filed by The Alliance for Solar Choice (www.allianceforsolarchoice.com), a collection of large rooftop solar companies. TASC has a variety of solar promotion projects across the country.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (), the rate increase would have come to roughly $19 per month for homes with average photovoltaic solar systems. This is a quite substantial price hike, and is about a quarter of the money saved by generating customers. These figures are provided by Renew Wisconsin (). PV systems are still fairly expensive, and it takes a significant amount of time to make them cost effective. This fee dramatically increases that time period, likely discouraging people from installing home solar panel systems. Other rate changes and increases are still going through.

The conflict between the new industry of renewable energy traditional utility companies and their market monopolies and allies in the fossil fuel extraction industry is quite obvious. WE Energies states that the increase is necessary to meet potential increased demands on the power grid due to CG customers using the normal grid when the solar systems are not generating, but those customers still pay for electricity they draw from the grid. Renewable advocates think that they are protecting their monopolized market share by discouraging leaving the old centralized power system, instead. The solar companies are, of course, not being altruistic. They would like to break into the power market and make potentially huge profits from their own products, but the average homeowner benefits greatly by having an alternative option for electricity generation. For renewable systems to really take off and threaten the utility monopolies, enough people need to be willing to take the leap, and making sure consumers are not punished for simple market choices is both a step toward solidifying the renewable industry and a victory for choice and open markets.