14,800 PREPA customers benefiting from utility’s net metering program
Some 14,800 Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority customers are benefiting from Net Metering Billing, representing about 70 million-kilowatt hour of energy consumption through renewable energy sources including solar, wind and geothermal.
Under net metering, renewable energy system supplies all or part of the client’s electricity consumption; excess energy, if any, is exported to PREPA’s electrical system. The customer receives a credit when the system exports energy to the grid.
Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and PREPA Executive Director José Ortiz visited one of the thousands of families benefiting from the net metering program.
“This program offers a great opportunity for Puerto Rico residents to be part of a new way to consume and be receive energy,” said Rosselló.
Meanwhile, PJ Wilson, president of Solar and Energy Storage Association — an association representing Puerto Rico’s solar energy storage companies — said “SESA was created to promote a stronger public policy, help solve problems with solar interconnection to the power grid, and address any barrier to solar energy.”
Wilson added that “we still have much work to do, but PREPA has worked diligently with SESA for the past nine months to address many of the problems that have chronically slowed solar growth in the past and we are very grateful for their work.”
Customers interested in registering for net metering can apply on PREPA’s Electronic Project Filing Portal, known as PREPAEE.
PREPAEE is an automated system for filing and handling requests for evaluation of distributed generation projects for interconnection agreements and net metering participation programs.
The website eases monitoring of the application by users and streamlines communication between PREPA and the applicant, public corporation officials said.
Act 114-2007, as amended, known as the Net Metering Act, establishes that projects that are interconnected with the transmission or power sub-transmission network — and that wish to participate in the net metering program — must have maximum installed capacity of 5 megawatts of alternate current for commercial, government, industrial and agricultural businesses, as well as educational institutions and medical-hospital facilities.
As the author of Law 114-2007, while I welcome Governor Rosselló’s interest in increasing the use of net metering, due to collusive foot-dragging by PREPA over the past 12 years, we have less than 2 PREPA clients daily joining net metering since my law was enacted. Let’s hope that the Governor and PREPA board members check statistics regularly to make sure that number goes up to at least 20 new net metering clients daily, or 7,000 more yearly, and that the press keep monitoring those numbers monthly, or at least quarterly!
The article says that the client receives a credit for excess energy. Please explain the details. How much credit?