Solar Power World interviewed Dr. Abbas Ghassemi, director of the Institute for Energy and Environment (IE&E) and professor of Chemical Engineering at New Mexico State University, about net-metering. Dr. Ghassemi is also the president of the National Advisory Board for Ecotech Institute. Dr. Ghassemi views net-metering as part of the natural evolution of the smart grid, and believes its outcome is inevitable, whether a utility does it today, or in 20 years. Read the following Q&A session to find out what else Dr. Ghassemi has to say on this hotly debated topic.
Dr. Abbas Ghassemi, Director of Institute for Energy and Environment (IE&E) and professor of Chemical Engineering at New Mexico State University.
SPW: Can you assess what last year’s intense debate in Arizona will have on net-metering in other states?
Dr. Abbas Ghassemi: Net-metering is already allowed in over half the United States, including Arizona, so the debate will not have any significant impacts on other states.
SPW: There’s a big debate going on in Massachusetts right now over the issue. Are you following that discussion? What do you think the outcome will be?
Dr. Ghassemi: I suspect the Massachusetts debate also reflects background concerns among neighborhoods on visual impacts. Gardner, Massachusetts had the nation’s first all solar residential neighborhood in the 1980′s. Investor utilities already require net-metering, and it’s optional for municipal utilities. As a result, there will be an increased use of net-metering over time in Massachusetts and other states.
SPW: Where do the consumers fit into the equation of solar and the utilities? Polls consistently show consumers want more solar. Can utilities change the way they deliver power to accommodate solar? What specifically do you see as the changes they have to make, if their customers continue to demand it?
Dr. Ghassemi: Net-metering fits in well with the American psyche and lifestyle, allowing homeowners to generate their own power and sell back to the utility. Many utilities have already changed the way they deliver power to allow solar interconnection and net-metering (e.g., Austin, Texas). Distributed power generation through PV technology is rapidly changing the utility power delivery model.
SPW: Can you give our readers a sense of why the rhetoric surrounding net-metering has become so heated? In Arizona, the APS tried to do everything they could to paint solar consumers as leeches feeding off the other customers who didn’t have solar. Do utilities really see solar as that much of a threat?
Dr. Ghassemi: Some utilities see solar as a threat; other more forward looking utilities see it as an opportunity. Solar isn’t going away; it is only growing at a rapid pace with over 35 GW installed globally last year, 99% of which was on-grid.
SPW: Let’s turn to RPS. We’ve spoken to installers who are concerned that utilities will abandon solar installations once they hit their “quotas.” It’s already happened to some extent in Arizona. What’s your sense of how utilities will handle those changes? Will they support raising the quotas if solar installations continue the rapid pace of growth they’ve shown over the past three years?
Dr. Ghassemi: Some utilities will support raising RPS quotas, others will not. Solar prices have dropped by over 80% in the last six years. Amortized over 20 years, a grid-connected PV system will provide power at 12-15 cents per kWh. PV has already reached grid parity in some countries (e.g., Japan), and as prices continue to drop, will become the lowest cost option for consumers to generate electricity in Arizona and elsewhere. Thus, future RPSes will have diminishing importance, and solar systems will continue to have rapid growth nationally, with or without RPS. Those states with RPS are ahead of the curve.
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