Idaho Power is continuing their efforts to slash how much they pay solar owners for the energy they generate and export back to the grid. What’s coming next is even worse.

Their latest proposal before the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) would cut the Export Credit Rate (ECR) by as much as 80 percent for most of the year. If approved, this would take an already bad deal and make it devastating, not just for homeowners and small commercial businesses who invest in solar, but for the many solar provider businesses.

For years, Idahoans who installed solar panels received a retail rate credit of about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the extra power they provided to the grid. In 2023, that was reduced to about 4 cents. Now, Idaho Power wants to pay less than 1 cent for eight months of the year (non-summer). When an Idaho Power customer exports excess electricity to the grid, it flows to their neighbor’s house or the next house down the street that needs power. Idaho Power pays 1 cent /kWh for that energy and charges your neighbor 10 cents/kWh.

This is not how a free market is supposed to work. When a monopoly like Idaho Power sets its own prices, buying low and selling high, it rigs the system in favor of the company and punishes people who invested in independence and self-reliance with clean solar energy.

This is literally a power grab. Idaho Power is creating a system where they have control over all electricity generation in the state, regardless of whether it’s clean or not. In their recent 20-year plan, they have thrown out their promise of 100 percent clean energy by 2045 and are proposing two new gas-fired power plants in Idaho. Their new rates favor this expensive, dirty power over small, clean solar installations on residential roofs, churches, and businesses.

Idaho Power justifies this change by using their own internal study, known as the VODER report, a deeply flawed and self-serving analysis of the value of distributed energy resources. Independent experts, funded by the Sierra Club of Idaho, Portneuf Resource Council, and others, commissioned a separate third-party study that came to a very different conclusion. The value of customer-generated solar power that they determined is far greater than what Idaho Power claims. The PUC did not seriously review and compare that independent study to the ‘fox in the hen house’ VODER study. (To see the comparison, go here: https://www.sierraclub.org/idaho/blog/2022/10/factsheet-idaho-power-undervalues-solar)

This new rate proposal is a direct threat to Idaho’s growing solar industry. Solar installation companies are already closing their doors; people are losing their jobs. With new data centers and AI facilities planned for Idaho, the demand for electricity is forecasted to grow rapidly and solar is by far the cheapest and fastest way to bring that new energy online. Idaho Power should be promoting residential solar instead of killing it.

These rate proposals are also an attack on energy freedom and fairness. Idahoans deserve the right to generate their own power and receive a fair rate for the electricity they provide for their communities. When a monopoly starts punishing people for taking the initiative to make their own power, we’ve got a problem.

Fairness. Freedom. Free markets. That’s what Idahoans believe in. Let’s make sure our energy policy reflects those values.

There’s still time to act. Tell the Public Utilities Commission that these rates are unfair and that they only favor Idaho Power’s bottom line and not consumers. This isn’t how we do things in Idaho. Urge them to reject Idaho Power’s rate cut proposal and demand a truly independent study for the value of rooftop solar; one led by academic, industry, and governmental experts, not by the utility itself.

The public has a chance to provide 2 — 5 minutes of oral testimony in front of the three Commissioners on Tuesday, May 20. Between 4:00 and 7:00 pm.

For those who wish to offer verbal testimony on the record: dial 1-415-655-0001, then enter participant code 2863 692 2927.

For those who wish to call in and listen only: dial 1-415-655-0001, then enter participant code 2630 896 6223.