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David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Yesterday the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) voted unanimously to enact sweeping changes to the way the state will compensate rooftop solar energy. The decision, which came after more than three hours of public comment in which rate payers, environmental advocates, and solar industry workers voiced their near-universal opposition to the policy change, will effectively reduce how much money new solar customers can expect to recoup by 75% or more.
At a time when California is attempting to transition to clean energy, opponents argued that the change to the net energy metering program (NEM) would cripple the rooftop solar industry and hamper the state’s progress on clean energy in favor of supporting the utility company’s monopoly on energy. In comments that were occasionally emotional to the point of being vitriolic, callers attempted to shame CPUC and cast them as shills for the corporate interests of Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.
In fact, for many Californians who called into the vote today, the conversation seemed to have far less to do with how to make the transition equitable, and instead hinged upon the perception that the decision would be an economic windfall to utility companies and harm grid resilience. Rate payers railed against the utility company’s record-setting profits and negligent business practices that have cost the state billions in fire damages in addition to human lives. For many callers, the debate hinged on reducing reliance on monopolistic corporations rather than equitable decarbonization strategies.
Still, three hours of desperate pleading for a “no” vote did not sway the Commission. And the future of rooftop solar will look considerably different in California going forward. The new plan will tie the rates that solar customers receive to the time that they sell then energy back to the grid, thereby massively incentivizing investment in battery storage to complement solar systems.
The decision was destined to be controversial no matter the specifics. Back in 2021, the CPUC announced its intent to change the NEM rates with an even more drastic plan that included rate reductions and also essentially levied a $50 monthly tax on rooftop solar users. The backlash sent CPUC back to the drawing board to craft a more modest proposal. But early versions of today’s ruling were still cast as far too drastic by the solar industry and by opponents of the program.
The debate surrounding the changes is complex, but at its heart, the controversy boils down to two problems, according to the CPUC. One, the prior structure placed the cost of rooftop solar unfairly onto lower income residents. And two, the prior structure had become outdated, and rooftop solar owners were being overpaid for the energy their panels produced.
Under the old NEM system, residents with rooftop solar were allowed to use any energy from their system to pay for their own energy costs instead of buying from the utility companies. Any extra energy they generated could be sold back to the grid at the standard rate that the Utility Company would charge to customers–between 23 and 35 cents per kilowatt-hour. At the end of the billing period, solar customers only pay for the energy they use minus what they sell back, hence the “net” in net energy metering.
But the utility companies don’t simply eat that cost. In fact, they don’t take a financial hit at all. In California, utility companies are paid a fixed amount for the service they provide. The companies charge a fixed rate for electricity that’s multiplied by how much energy is used by a household (or company or church etc). When less electricity is used, like in the case of rooftop solar, the utility companies respond by increasing the rate to ensure they’re paid their full amount. The more rooftop solar that gets added, the higher the rate goes. (This is an oversimplification, and the Utilities Commission technically has to approve any rate hikes on the basis of whether they’re warranted or not, but it captures what’s happening here nonetheless.)
This policy heavily incentivized residents to install rooftop solar so they use less electricity from the grid. But in doing so, it left those that can’t afford solar to pay the difference. An analysis by the Public Advocates Office at the CPUC showed that residents without rooftop solar were paying an extra $67 to $128 per year due to the cost of the old NEM programs. With the average cost of rooftop solar installation hovering around $12,000-$16,000, the prior policy was criticized as a regressive cost shift that functionally taxed the poor and gave to the rich. The CPUC and the utility companies argued that today’s decision is about rectifying that inequality.
In addition to improving the inequality for lower income residents, the CPUC also claims that their new net energy metering policy (dubbed NEM 3.0) will modernize the incentive structure to align with the needs of the grid.
As mentioned above, under the previous version of NEM, residents typically received between 25 and 35 cents per kWh of energy they sold back to the grid, because that’s what the utility companies would’ve charged. In other words, the retail price. But for utility companies, that price also includes money spent on grid hardening, infrastructure, maintenance, vegetation management, R&D, and myriad other fixed costs.
Couple that with the fact that adding energy to the grid,n the middle of the day, when the grid is ripe with solar and other renewables, the value of adding more energy to the system can drop to basically zero. “Retail net energy metering was a good way to get industry started,” says Matt Baker, the Director of the CPUC's Public Advocates Office. “It's a terrible way to try to decarbonize after we've already gotten started.”
Which is why under NEM 3.0, solar customers will be compensated based on when they export their energy to the grid, with different values assigned to each hour of the day, each month, and weekdays versus weekends. These rates also vary by utility company, but on average, solar customers can expect to receive about five to eight cents per kilowatt-hour starting in April 2023, which obviously constitutes a major reduction.
Due to the increased importance of timing in the new export rates under NEM 3.0, batteries have become a major pillar of the new policy since they let owners store their solar energy and sell it back to the grid when demand and export rates are higher. In fact, the new policy effectively makes it economically untenable to install rooftop solar without one. “So whereas before, you would get 30 cents a kilowatt-hour in the middle of the day, now that will be paid at avoided costs–five, six, seven cents, depending on where you are,” says Baker. “But in the evening, you can earn 20 times that amount. You can earn a dollar or more [per kilowatt-hour] depending on where you are.” The idea, says Baker, is to incentivize customers to sell their energy back when the grid is low on renewables and energy demand is highest. But even the CPUC admits that the proposed changes will make rooftop solar less profitable for residents overall. The goal, the Commission says, is to have solar systems pay for themselves within nine years, versus the four or five that most customers experienced under NEM 2.0.
It’s important to note that all of these changes in NEM 3.0 will only affect new rooftop solar projects. Existing NEM 1.0 and 2.0 customers will retain their current rates for 20 years. NEM 3.0 also includes provisions that add extra money–a few cents per kilowatt-hour–to the rates that customers will receive for the next several years as the transition plays out.
But opponents argue that’s simply not enough and that the plan’s aggressive export pricing reductions will cripple the solar industry. “All the good innovation and progress that we want to see in California will be severely hampered if they go forward with what's on paper right now,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro Executive Director, California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) in the lead up to the vote this week. Del Chiaro agrees that the grid needs more batteries and that the current model unfairly places the cost of rooftop solar onto lower-income residents. But she says NEM 3.0 is too drastic, and the changes should come more gradually. “We all want to see more energy storage, but you can't get there overnight. And what the commission wants to do is make the future appear on April 15, 2023, when these new regulations would go into effect,” said Del Chiaro earlier in the week. “That simply will just throw the whole market over a cliff. It's too drastic, it's too extreme, and it runs counter to everything California wants to see.”
Del Chiaro and many other solar industry representatives have begged the Commission for a longer “glide path” towards its goals. They argue that battery technology is still too expensive–it typically increases the cost of a solar system by about a third–and regulators should wait for the technology to mature and come down in cost before essentially mandating its adoption. The CPUC points to the many government incentives at both the state and federal level that are targeted at reducing the cost of battery installation. But again, Del Chiaro and CALSSA counter that timing is the problem and many of these programs are not yet online and will likely still not be available when NEM 3.0 goes into effect in April.
The solar industry also wants to see the export rate reduction occur more gradually. Walker Wright, the Vice President of Public Policy at Sunrun, one of the nation’s largest rooftop solar providers, said he thought an initial 35% reduction in export rates would’ve been much more reasonable than the 75% that the CPUC pushed through today. “It all goes back to the timeline on how we can get there so that the industry doesn't see damage,” said Wright earlier in the week. “I just think it needs to be less drastic at the beginning.”
If NEM 3.0 does drive solar adoption downward, which seems likely, it will slow California’s progress on achieving its ambitious renewable energy goals and likely allow companies like PG&E to retain their monopoly on the energy market for longer. The CPUC is keenly aware of the tradeoffs, but their vote today seems to indicate that they consider them worthwhile.
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
According to a Forbes report last April, both the viewership and dollars behind women’s sports at a collegiate and professional level are growing.
In 2022, the first 32 games of the NCAA tournament had record attendance levels, breaking records set back in 2004, and largely driven by the new and rapidly growing women’s NCAA tournament. WNBA openers this year saw a 21% spike in attendance, with some teams including the LA Sparks reporting triple-digit ticket sales growth, about 121% over 2022’s total. In 2023, the average size of an LA Sparks crowd swelled to 10,396 people, up from 4,701 people.
Women make up half the population, but “also 50% of the folks that are walking into the stadium at Dodger Stadium, or your NFL fans are just about 50% women,” noted Erin Storck, a panelist and senior analyst at Los Angeles-based Elysian Park Ventures.
Storck added that in heterosexual households, women generally manage most of the family’s money, giving them huge purchasing power, a potential advantage for female-run leagues. “There's an untapped revenue opportunity,” she noted.
In the soccer world, Los Angeles-based women’s soccer team Angel City FC has put in the work to become a household name, not just in LA County but across the nation. At an LA Tech Week panel hosted by Athlete Strategies about investing in sports, Angel City head of strategy and chief of staff Kari Fleischauer said that years before launching the women’s National Women’s Soccer League team, Angel City FC was pounding the pavement letting people know about the excitement ladies soccer can bring. She noted community is key, and that fostering a sense of engagement and safety at the team’s home venue, BMO stadium (formerly Banc of California Stadium), is one reason fans keep coming back.
Adding free metro rides to BMO stadium and private rooms for nursing fans to breastfeed or fans on the spectrum to avoid sensory overload, were just some of the ways ACFC tried to include its community in the concept of its stadium, Fleischauer said. She noted, though, that roughly 46% of Angel City fans are “straight white dudes hanging out with their bros.”
“Particularly [on] the woman's side, I'd like to think we do a better job of making sure that there's spaces for everyone,” Fleischauer told the audience. “One thing we realize is accessibility is a huge thing.”
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.
Here's what people are saying about the fifth day of L.A. Tech Week on social:
#LATechWeek has been on 🔥🔥🔥. Yes the events are super cool at amazing venues. But, I’m blown away by the people. I’ve met so many founders building generative AI companies from the ground up. I’m so bullish on LA right now🥳. LA is for builders #longLA
Thanks @rpnickson 📸 pic.twitter.com/B6rT2jJYIs
— Dr. Kelly O'Brien (@Kvo2013) June 8, 2023
Successful LatinxVC Avanza Summit 2023 in LA! It’s been an amazing few days near the beach w great company. Thank you to our panelists & participants.
Huge thanks to our incredible sponsors SVB, Chavez Family Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, PledgeLA, Fenwick & West, Countsy! pic.twitter.com/oVuGIgFurk
— LatinxVC (@LatinxVCs) June 9, 2023
30+ gaming startups presented at the A16z Speedrun Demo Day in LA yesterday. Great thanks to the @a16zGames team for an awesome day of events! #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/DKq8IFo5QZ
— Grace Zhou (@graceminzhou) June 9, 2023
📣🤩 What’s the buzz? It’s #LATechWeek from @TechstarsLA & @TechstarsHealth joint demo day with the #Techstar HC team where our @fyelabs founder/CEO Suvojit Ghosh mentored both cohorts! #TechStars demo day highlighted 12 amazing emerging #startups in #healthtech #innovation. 🩺 pic.twitter.com/0RXClCtfDQ
— FYELABS (@fyelabs) June 9, 2023
Another successful Coffee On Slauson in the books for #LATechWeek.
Special thanks to the good people at Pledge LA, SVB and @GundersonLaw for the ongoing support and the @findyourhilltop staff for providing the space, eats & vibes. ♻️ pic.twitter.com/51cMDoEn30
— Slauson & Co. (@SlausonAndCo) June 9, 2023
The perfect combo to start #LATechWeek Day 5: pastries, coffee, and great convos with industry founders ✨
Fireside chats with @enriquealle, @wp, and @robynpark pic.twitter.com/booYPdekVV
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 9, 2023
Of course @designerfund has the most amazing pastries at their event. #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/PjyWlGTQI4
— Jesse Pickard (@jessepickard) June 9, 2023
My favorite event from @Techweek_ has to be "Modern Storytelling & Business Building." Hosted by @STHoward #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/SV1eexMJ4k
— JonnyZeller (@JonnyZeller) June 9, 2023
And the finale of the night was courtesy of the one and only @zedd for an unforgettable end to the "City of Games" party! Hosted by @a16zGames and @100Thieves #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/hliI9yLKse
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 9, 2023
Excited to be at the @a16zGames Speedrun Demo Day! Loved the energy and excitement from the companies that pitched there. It was also great to see @Tocelot and @ndrewlee at this amazing #LATechWeek event pic.twitter.com/NfLQO5lR27
— Andy Lee | andypwlee.bit (@andypwlee) June 9, 2023
Thank you to everyone who joined the Sony Venture Fund US team at #LATechWeek for our screening of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Last summer, we started building a presence in LA. Today, it's exciting to host such an event with the @Sony family and the LA VC community. pic.twitter.com/wdDm6qtHdL
— Sony Innovation Fund (@Sony_Innov_Fund) June 9, 2023
Time to eat, connect and build while @remi_rodney provided the vibes. 🙏🏽#LATechWeek @BuildOnBase @developer_dao @WeAreRazorfish pic.twitter.com/QIPh1gjvoA
— Hola Metaverso-Blockchain & New Web Tech Events 🎪 (@holametaverso) June 9, 2023
@Lux_Capital at #LATechWeek advancing the impossible to inevitable, from..
..defense primes partnering with cutting edge defense tech startups, to..
..hardware x LLMs improving mental health.
From the rich and diverse LA ecosystem stems generational companies: pic.twitter.com/v5S5r8JtbU
— Shahin Farshchi (@Farshchi) June 9, 2023
LA Tech Week has been a blast! Met some amazing creators, founders and investors from all over the world! #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/AAh9JFELhe
— Chris Germano (@netslayer) June 9, 2023
Had such a blast at LA Tech Week and hosting events for @brexHQ
Top highlights were collabing with @pulley on an Emerging Managers / Founder mixer at the @poplco House, rooftop event in Venice, creator panel with @thechangj & proper Korean food with in KTown.
Exhausted is an… pic.twitter.com/mGQnSYGPdg
— Τyler Robinson (@TyyRob3) June 9, 2023
Did you have fun at @sophiaamoruso’s launch party for @trustfundvc? #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/gbrbXRQ9Xx
— Kay (@KaySnels) June 9, 2023
y00tilty in every city with @KaylaLor3n & @cryptochrisg813.
Welcome to the LA @y00tsNFT fam! #LATechWeek #3XP week. pic.twitter.com/6wWKlsTacx
— VanG0xH (@CryptoVanGoghs) June 9, 2023
Really enjoyed #LATechWeek. Here are some observations I made 👇
— s.personal.ai (Suman Kanuganti) (@SumanPersonalAI) June 9, 2023
Thank you @TheKofiAmpadu for including me in #demoday with the latest @a16ztxo cohort! It was a real full circle moment to witness the brilliance of both @ChrisLyons & @ZMuse_ & #PledgeLA very own. She’s why we’re #LongLA 🚀💕 #LAtechweek pic.twitter.com/itkKXMxQRb
— Qiana Qiana! (@Q_i_a_n_a) June 9, 2023
@upfrontvc Gaming Founders Podcast #iLOVELA #LATechWeek @Techweek_ @KatiaAmeri @mucker @fikavc @bonfire_vc @TenOne10 @WatertowerGroup @ganasvc @IAmRobRyan @john_at_stonks @eva_ho @dereknorton pic.twitter.com/LCbaGXCoW7
— Sean Goldfaden (@seangoldfaden) June 9, 2023
Hosts Kevin Zhang, Partner at @upfrontvc, and Eden Chen, CEO of @pragmaplatform, interviewed two special guests from @raidbaseinc Stephen Lim, Co-Founder & Product Director, and Trevor Romleski, Co-Founder & Game Director. 🎙 #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/hxHEAoELZ6
— Tech Week (@Techweek_) June 9, 2023
Kicking off @a16zGames @100Thieves City of Games party at #LATechWeek 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/zQcZedG15f
— Jon Lai (@Tocelot) June 9, 2023
Yesterday at @socinnovation I got to have this AWESOME conversation with @iamwill — musician, producer, technology entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of https://t.co/D60y1e2JOu #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/KBxK6rXyTG
— Anna Barber (@annawbarber) June 9, 2023
I absolutely love this game. Proud moment for the team @investwithatlas. #LATechWeek pic.twitter.com/fPZvKXU7TC
— Tobias Francis (@TobiasFrancis) June 9, 2023
Had a blast at LA Tech Week this year with @brexHQ
From hosting & moderating my first creator panel featuring @BlakeMichael14, to a fun rooftop night in Venice, and to attending some amazing events such as Watertower’s emerging manager panel and a VC/founder tennis tournament pic.twitter.com/udjfmLHE0L
— Jonathan Chang (@thechangj) June 8, 2023
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
At Lowercarbon Capital’s LA Tech Week event Thursday, the synergy between the region’s aerospace industry and greentech startups was clear.
The event sponsored by Lowercarbon, Climate Draft (and the defunct Silicon Valley Bank’s Climate Technology & Sustainability team) brought together a handful of local startups in Hawthorne not far from LAX, and many of the companies shared DNA with arguably the region’s most famous tech resident: SpaceX.
Here’s a look at the greentech startups that pitched during the Tech Week event, and how they think what they’re building could help solve the climate crisis.
Arbor: Based in El Segundo, this year-old startup is working to convert organic waste into energy and fresh water. At the same time, it also uses biomass carbon removal and storage to remove carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in an attempt to avoid further damaging the earth’s ozone layer. At the Tech Week event Thursday, Arbor CEO Brad Hartwig told a stunned crowd that Arbor aims to remove about five billion tons of organic waste from landfills and turn that into about 6 PWh, or a quarter of the global electricity need, each year. Hartwig is an alumni of SpaceX; he was a manufacturing engineer on the Crew Dragon engines from 2016-2018 and later a flight test engineer at Kitty Hawk.
Antora: Sunnyvale-based Antora Energy was founded in 2017, making it one of the oldest companies on the pitching block during the event. Backed by investors including the National Science Foundation and Los Angeles-based Overture VC, Antora has raised roughly $57 million to date, most recently a $50 million round last February. Chief operating officer Justin Briggs said Antora’s goal is to modernize and popularize thermal energy storage using ultra-hot carbon. Massive heated carbon blocks can give off thermal energy, which Antora’s proprietary batteries then absorb and store as energy. It’s an ambitious goal, but one the world needs at scale to green its energy footprint. According to Briggs, “the biggest challenge is how can we turn back variable intermittent renewable electricity into something that's reliable and on demand, so we can use it to provide energy to everything we need.”
Arc: Hosting the panel was Arc, an electric boating company that’s gained surprising momentum, moving from design to delivering its first e-boats in just two years of existence. Founded in 2021, the company’s already 70 employees strong and has already sold some of its first e-boats to customers willing to pay the luxury price tag, CTO Ryan Cook said Thursday. Cook said that to meet the power needs of a battery-powered speedboat, the Arc team designed the vehicle around the battery pack with the goal of it being competitive with gas boats when compared to range and cost of gas. But on the pricing side, it’s not cheap. Arc’s flagship vessel, the Arc One is expected to cost roughly $300,000. During the panel, Cook compared the boat to being “like an early Tesla Roadster.” To date Arc Boats has raised just over $35 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Kevin Durant, Will Smith and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Clarity Technology: Carbon removal startup Clarity is based in LA and was founded by Yale graduate and CEO Glen Meyerowitz last year. Clarity is working to make “gigaton solutions for gigaton problems.” Their aim? To remove up to 2,000 billion pounds of carbon from the atmosphere through direct air capture, a process which uses massive fans to move chemicals that capture CO2. But the challenge, Meyerowitz noted in his speech, is doing this at scale in a way that makes an actual dent in the planet’s emissions while also efficiently using the electricity needed to do so. Meyerowitz spent nearly five years working as an engineer for SpaceX in Texas, and added he’s looking to transfer those learnings into Clarity.
Parallel Systems: Based in Downtown LA’s Arts District, this startup is building zero-emission rail vehicles that are capable of long-haul journeys otherwise done by a trucking company. The estimated $700 billion trucking industry, Parallel Systems CEO Matt Soule said, is ripe for an overhaul and could benefit from moving some of its goods off-road to electric railcars. According to Soule, Parallel’s electric battery-powered rail vehicles use 25% of the energy a semi truck uses, and at a competitive cost. Funded in part by a February 2022 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Parallel Systems has raised about $57 million to date. Its most recent venture funding round was a $49 million Series A led by Santa Monica-based VC Anthos Capital. Local VCs including Riot Ventures and Santa Monica-based Embark Ventures are also backers of Parallel.
Terra Talent: Unlike the rest of the startups pitching at the Tech Week event, Terra Talent was focused on building teams rather than technology. Founder Dolly Singh worked at SpaceX, Oculus and Citadel as a headhunter, and now runs Terra, a talent and advisory firm that helps companies recruit top talent in the greentech space. But, she said, she’s concerned that all the work these startups are doing won’t matter unless we very quickly turn around the current trendlines. “Earth will shake us off like and she will do just fine in 10,000 years,” she said. “It’s our way of living, everything we love is actually here on earth… there’s nothing I love on Mars,” adding that she’s hopeful the startups that pitched during the event will be instrumental in making sure the planet stays habitable for a little while longer.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.