Item 3- Draft Recommendation on Changes to Residential Rooftop Solar Rebate Program — original pdf

Backup

BOARD/COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION Resource Management Commission Resolution on Changes to Residential Rooftop Solar Rebate Program WHEREAS, streamlining Austin Energy’s Residential Solar program will reduce customers’ and installers’ cost and time necessary for solar and battery installation while reducing administrative overhead for Austin Energy (AE); and WHEREAS, given the reasonably expected large increase in AE load growth in the next few years, aggressively increasing energy efficiency measures, distributed energy resources, solar installations, and onsite energy-storage batteries are critical means to achieve the Austin Energy Resource Generation and Climate Protection Plan and advance local resilience; NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Resource Management Commission makes the following recommendations to the Austin City Council to modify AE’s rooftop solar program and initiate a battery incentive program. 1. Streamlining Administration A. AE shall eliminate the solar education course and quiz, replacing it with a digital information flyer and material integrated into the solar and battery installation application process that contains the most useful information, such as an explanation of Value of Solar, how much yearly energy production to expect per panel, explanation of kW vs kWh, and other basic information. B. AE shall not condition rebate approval upon the customer’s current electricity usage. AE should require the contractor to provide values for expected usage and production to the customer. AE may warn the applying customer if proposed arrays exceed a certain percentage of the customer’s present electricity usage, to help the customer understand that they may be buying more solar and/or battery equipment than they may need, C. AE shall not place additional requirements on the installation or parts used other than those covered by normal inspection. 2. Consumer Protection 1 A. AE shall specify a minimum set of 10-year warranty provisions that every contractor must offer to be eligible for the rebate list. Installers can offer other provisions beyond that minimum set. B. AE shall provide up-to-date interactive reference solar and battery benchmark cost estimates for a few house types and roof scenarios to give customers a valid point of comparison to evaluate solar contractors’ sales cost quotes. C. AE shall require 75% TSRF (Total Solar Resource Fraction) for 3 kW of the total proposed solar installation, but not for the entire array. AE may require the contractor to calculate the TSRF for the entire array and communicate that estimate to the customer with an explanation of what that means for estimated annual array energy production. D. AE’s solar application process should inform the customer that they could save energy and reduce the size of their solar and/or battery installation if they make the host premises more energy efficient with measures such as attic insulation and heat pumps, and provide a link to AE's energy efficiency audit and implementation process. 3. Standard for New Inverters For interconnection agreement, AE shall require all distributed energy inverters to meet the IEEE 1547-2018, Category II standard, with frequency-watt mode, also known as frequency-droop response, enabled. 4. Improvements in AE Solar and Battery Inspections A. Physical on-site inspections shall be done asynchronously between inspector and contractor (neither party is required to meet at an appointed date and time). B. Solar and battery inspections shall be conducted using an online submission process, with the installer or contractor uploading a set of labeled photographs of the installed equipment to an AE online inspection portal. These photographs must be verifiable as to date and location and address every item that AE specifies as necessary to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the solar and/or battery installation. C. Online inspection submittals shall include proof that the contractor has conducted an online commissioning test proving successful operation of PV and/or battery system. 2 D. AE’s installation approval or failure notes shall be returned to the contractor within two full business days. E. If any contractor’s initial online inspection failure rate equals or exceeds 20%, then AE may require those poorly performing contractors' installations to be subject to in- person physical inspection. AE should provide a work quality pathway for poor performing contractors to earn their way back to the online inspection process. F. AE may conduct random physical, on-site inspections to validate the effectiveness and accuracy of the online inspection submittals and the process itself. The sample shall be statistically significant, but may not exceed 10% of all online inspections. G. Inspections shall contain no additional requirements beyond “shall meet NFPA 70 National Electrical Code 2023." H. Inspections shall not require stamped engineering drawings for battery installations, as this is extremely uncommon in other Texas utilities, and is not required for solar-only installations. I. Other than verifying model numbers installed, inspections shall require no additional checks for items that are already covered by manufacturer and vendor Distributed Energy Resource standards, including UL 1741, UL 1973, UL 9540, and IEEE 1547-2018. 5. Encouragement of Onsite Energy-Storage Batteries A. AE shall release a request for proposal (RFP) for a virtual power plant (VPP) or begin implementing a similar program for the aggregated control of residential batteries and automated demand response measures within Austin Energy’s service territory, including existing and/or future batteries, to provide dynamic grid reliability support, congestion reduction and electric portfolio cost reduction. B. AE should establish a set of residential rebates equaling $2,000 for a solar installation, $2,000 for a battery installation, and $5,000 for a combined solar and battery installation, to take advantage of fixed-cost efficiencies of installing these together. The battery must be a minimum of 5 kWh, UL 9540 listed. The level of rebates should be reevaluated and potentially reset no less than every three years. C. The battery rebate should be increased by $25/kWh if customers commit to participate in a compensated energy-management program for the battery to assist in grid services, on a $/kWh basis, for 5 years, even if that program is not available at the 3 time of interconnection. 6. Survey of Solar Inverter Installations to Determine Grid Protection Capability and Equity for Installations in Low-Income Households AE shall survey the prevalence and distribution of pre-IEEE 1547-2018-compliant inverters on residential and small commercial solar installations across Austin, and evaluate whether, which, and how many of these should be replaced for grid protection or customer resilience and protection purposes. 7. Implementation Schedule Implementation deadline for these recommendations shall start no more than 15 months from the date they are approved by the Austin City Council. 4