Our Commercial Customers

For so many Californians who have chosen to install a solar electric system, the phrase Net Metering is simply a way of describing the way power from roof-top solar panels will reduce their own electric consumption and spin the meter backwards.

But Net Metering also allows owners of solar systems to receive credit for clean power provided to the utility company when their own energy needs are being exceeded during the day. The result: electricity generated by your solar panels is purchased by the utility company at the same price that it is sold to the customer.

Most likely because they receive no profit in this transaction, the utility companies originally argued that another customer receives no economic benefit from their neighbor’s decision to go solar.

However, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) believed otherwise. In 1996, it created the Net Energy regulation to permit 0.5% of the utility company’s demand to be generated by clean resources, and later increased it to 5%. The commissioners were convinced that the Distributed Generation (DG) produced by commercial and residential solar panels would offset the cost for new conventional power plants and transmission lines. It would also help to stabilize power supplies during peak summer demand when solar energy is at its maximum.

As the cap of 5% is drawing near, Californian utility companies (including PG&E, SCE and SDG&E) have made it very clear—paying customers full retail value for the clean energy that your solar panels generate is not an economic model that is sustainable for their shareholders.

Meaning, they do not want their customers in the business of generating power and are planning to do whatever they can to stop the advance of net metering at 5% of peak demand. If they aren’t able to stop net metering completely, they would like to require that energy be sold at a wholesale rate (rather than retail rate) at the very least.

Without net metering, the utility companies will pay only a fraction of the cost for electricity generated by photovoltaic solar panels, which would significantly reduce the economic viability of investing in solar power and directly threaten over 120,000 individual solar panel owners and an industry that now employs over 43,000 Californians.

Moreover, a recent study by former CPUC advisor, Tom Beach of Crossborder Energy, estimates that the financial benefits of solar energy are actually exceeding its costs by 92.2 million dollars a year. This study reveals that the utility companies are wrong, and that solar power actually benefits both the owner of the solar panels and their neighbors. These and other arguments will be made by clean energy advocates during the next year as the cap of 5% gets closer and closer.

Net Metering has been the backbone of California’s transition to a cleaner, solar-powered DG future. Unless battery technology that is clean, efficient, non-toxic and affordable is developed soon, Net Metering will disappear and solar panel owners (and rate-payers alike!) will suffer as conventional fossil fuel and nuclear plants are built to meet our future power requirements.

Here at AMECO we hope that clean energy advocates and the solar power industry can win the fight against the utility companies.

And their off!

Recently, hundreds of middle school and high school-aged students gathered for the kick-off orientation of the fourth annual Solar Grand Prix, an event put together by Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske, the 5th District Solar and Sustainability Task Force and Partners of Parks.

We’re proud to announce that AMECO Solar is sponsoring this exciting and educational event where local students learn about solar power while also applying their practical math and science skills.

At the kick-off, each of the 79 teams was given a Solar Power Car kit that included a miniature-size solar panel and motor. The challenge? Work with their teammates to design and build the car that will race down the 65 foot track the fastest. Rumor has it that the lightest designs are usually the top competitors, but awards are also given for the most creative designs.

AMECO employees have enjoyed participating in past years, cheering on our sponsored teams and even participating as one of the highly esteemed judges.

One of our team members explained “It’s cool to see the kids get so excited about solar energy and the designs of their cars. Some are so innovative! I remember one group picked up trash at the park a few weeks before the event and then used different pieces from the trash to build the solar power car.”

Other favorite designs included one made entirely of old, plastic CD holders and more technical designs where the solar panel could tilt to find the best angle for solar energy or bike gears were used to adjust the speed of the car. We can’t wait to see what the kids come up with this year.

“This year’s Solar Grand Prix will be bigger and better than ever. We have a record number of students and coaches who have signed up to compete in the race. Every year, I’m amazed at how innovative and technologically advanced our students are when I see the model cars they create each year,” Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske told the reporter at Everything Long Beach.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, April 20 and join us at El Dorado Park for the fourth annual Solar Grand Prix!

In the meantime, read more about the Solar Grand Prix at Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske’s blog and Everything Long Beach, or check out the Grunion Gazette’s video of the solar-powered model cars in motion from last year’s event.

More than one-third of U.S. solar installers believe that permitting requirements are limiting market growth, according to a new nationwide study conducted by Clean Power Finance.

The study, which the company says is the largest of its kind to date, provides quantifiable evidence of the negative effects that complex permitting regulations have on U.S. solar installers and also on the authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs), including municipalities and utilities, that oversee permitting processes.

Clean Power Finance undertook the study as part of preparations for the National Solar Permitting Database (NSPD), a free, online database of permitting requirements from across the U.S. that is funded in part by Clean Power Finance and in part by a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative grant.

“The study puts real numbers to what all installers have been feeling: permitting is an albatross around the industry’s neck,” says Patrick Redgate, president and CEO of Ameco Solar Inc., a Southern California-based solar installation company, and a member of the board of directors for the California Solar Energy Industries Association. “Clearly, not all cities are bad, but we need to call out the ones that are particularly problematic.”

Please click HERE to read the article in its entirety.

SOURCE: https://solarindustrymag.com/frustrated-installers-say-permitting-holds-back-the-us-solar-market

By Joshua H. Silavent – Staff Writer, Long Beach Business Journal

December 4, 2012 – Patrick Redgate has seen the solar power industry grow from its nascent days of potential several decades ago to a market today that is expanding to meet increased residential and commercial demand.

While working in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s, during a time of severe gas shortages, Redgate began to think about “where I could make a difference.” He understood the necessity for a robust renewable energy portfolio from both an environmental and economic perspective, long before it was fashionable to do so in either sense.

Patrick Redgate, president and CEO of Ameco Solar, shows off a solar panel
at his company’s headquarters in Paramount. “We have a saying in our
business: Fossil fuels are too precious to burn,” he told the
Business Journal. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Thomas McConville)

“The energy sector’s huge,” Redgate, the CEO of Paramount-based Ameco Solar, told the Business Journal. So getting in on the ground floor of the emerging solar industry was important for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the world’s need to broaden its energy supply to incorporate sustainable power sources and move away from dependence on oil. “We have a saying in our business: Fossil fuels are too precious to burn,” he said.

Redgate began working with a solar company in Signal Hill in 1979 after his return from the Middle East. He purchased the company two years later and changed the name to Ameco. Today, the company designs, installs and repairs solar energy systems for homes and businesses. “Most of what we do now is photovoltaic, which is electric,” he said.

But it took a while for solar technology to catch up with Redgate’s vision and early entry into the market. “I got to the point where I thought I was just never going to see it in my lifetime,” he said.

These days, however, solar is more popular than ever. One reason lies in the fact that more and more Americans want to reduce their environmental footprint and are resorting to alternative, renewable sources of energy to do so. Solar also makes good fiscal sense these days. “We may put in a system that only tackles 20 percent of their consumption but cuts their bill in half,” Redgate said.

Moreover, companies are finding solar power helps improve the bottom line and adds a measure of credibility for consumers who want to spend their money with socially and environmentally responsible businesses.

“Companies that can afford to go solar and want to present that image just automatically do it,” Redgate said.

The solar industry also has government investment to thank for its recent growth spurt, but many subsidies are set to expire at the end of 2016, which will likely cause some winnowing in the industry, or a “clearing of the field,” Redgate said. But these incentives have helped keep costs down as the industry expands. “I think that people would really be surprised to find out how affordable solar is,” he added.

Net metering, which provides retail rate credits to consumers who generate energy supplies for the power grid, has perhaps been the biggest incentive for consumers to invest in solar. However, utilities are fighting the way this benefit is calculated.

Still, Redgate makes a powerful case for solar. “Not only are we building infrastructure, but we’re creating wealth for the people that live in this state,” he said. Many residents and businesses in Long Beach like the sound of this pitch.

Whereas solar was once an option for the well-to-do, Redgate has seen young families and blue-collar workers clamoring for a new, green-friendly energy source. Furthermore, Ameco has performed installations for a number of small commercial retail centers, as well as doctor and dental offices, in Long Beach.

Ameco holds free workshops once or more a year for interested consumers to learn about the benefits of solar power, both from an environmental and economic standpoint. The company works with three photovoltaic and three thermal manufactures to provide clients with today’s best industry technology.

Thanks to increases in oil and natural gas production, as well as sustained growth in the renewable energy industry, the International Energy Agency reports that the United States is poised to become energy independent in the next decade or so. Redgate understands that solar is but one component of the nation’s energy portfolio, but a strong one at that. “You can’t just go all solar, or all wind, or all coal, or all nuclear . . . You have to have a mix,” he said.

Source: Long Beach Business Journal