{"id":370,"date":"2016-02-19T10:01:07","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T15:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/?p=370"},"modified":"2016-02-16T16:13:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T21:13:48","slug":"californians-could-save-1-4-billion-a-year-on-utilities-solarcity-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/californians-could-save-1-4-billion-a-year-on-utilities-solarcity-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Californians could save $1.4 billion a year on utilities, SolarCity says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Solar energy provider SolarCity released a report early this month detailing how making changes to the electricity grid in California could yield $1.4 billion a year.<\/p>\n<p>In the report, SolarCity proposed that instead of building more power lines, substations and other parts of the electric grid, the state <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-solarcity-electricity-costs-20160203-story.html\" title=\"should instead focus on localized electricity generation\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>should instead focus on localized electricity generation<\/strong><\/a>, such as rooftop solar and battery storage. <\/p>\n<p>This, SolarCity argued, could help shift utilities away from the old mentality of &#8220;build more, profit more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Revamping the electric grid could yield huge cost savings, SolarCity report says <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uQK31Z3msM\">https:\/\/t.co\/uQK31Z3msM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; L.A. Times Biz News (@latimesbiz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/latimesbiz\/status\/695292139480068101\">February 4, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Utility companies battling rooftop solar advocates<\/h3>\n<p>California utilities have been battling energy consumers for some time on multiple fronts. Back in December, California regulators <a href=\"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/california-utility-companies-proposed-new-fees-for-solar-customers-rejected\/\" title=\"rejected a proposal by state utility companies\"><strong>rejected a proposal by state utility companies<\/strong><\/a> that would have raised fees and costs for new solar customers. And more recently, California\u2019s Public Utilities Commission <a href=\"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/california-solar-owners-win-in-net-metering-vote\/\" title=\"upheld a net metering policy\"><strong>upheld a net metering policy<\/strong><\/a> that benefits homeowners with solar panels. <\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/california-solar-owners-win-in-net-metering-vote\/\" title=\"California solar owners win in net metering vote\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/electricity-meters_k8h28j3-150x150.jpg\" title=\"California solar owners win in net metering vote\" alt=\"California solar owners win in net metering vote\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/california-solar-owners-win-in-net-metering-vote\/\" title=\"California solar owners win in net metering vote\"><h4>California solar owners win in net metering vote<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/california-solar-owners-win-in-net-metering-vote\/\" title=\"California solar owners win in net metering vote\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Mix these recent politically-charged events in with the <a href=\"http:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/california-drought-takes-toll-on-electricity-production\/\" title=\"energy complications due to the recent drought\"><strong>energy complications due to the recent drought<\/strong><\/a> in the state, and it&#8217;s easy to see that California&#8217;s energy policies could be due for a deeper look.<\/p>\n<h3>California leads the way in solar<\/h3>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/openpv.nrel.gov\/rankings\" title=\"The Open PV Project\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Open PV Project<\/strong><\/a>, California leads the nation in number of solar PV systems installed with 291,515 (as of 2\/11\/16). Those numbers are leaps and bounds above the next closest state, Arizona, which boasted 49,498 installs (as of 2\/11\/16).<\/p>\n<p>With those numbers in mind, it&#8217;s hard to argue that California needs to focus more on solar itself. Now, the argument is shifting to how to best optimize the grid for the future.<\/p>\n<span class=\"source-attribution\">Orginally published on &rarr; <a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/solarcity-california-could-save-1-4-billion-with-power-grid-changes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Solar Energy Local<\/a><\/span><div class=\"pd-photo-att\">Photo Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:20140508_174759_resized.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Photo<\/a> by Ja.hess10 \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solar energy provider SolarCity released a report early this month detailing how making changes to the electricity grid in California could yield $1.4 billion a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,5],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utilitieslocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}