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NM Supreme Court upholds community solar billing rules
The state Supreme Court released a written opinion on Thursday upholding PRC community solar rules.
Published
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Why can’t utilities charge customers for community solar the way they want to? They couldn’t prove to the New Mexico Supreme Court that rules from state regulators are unreasonable or unlawful.
That’s according to a written opinion the state Supreme Court published Thursday, which affirms a verbal decision that came down in March upholding community solar rules from the Public Regulation Commission.
The governor in April 2021 signed the Community Solar Act, allowing the state to roll out a program where New Mexicans, small businesses and nonprofits can get solar energy without having to install rooftop solar. Instead, energy is transmitted via existing utility power lines from small-scale solar farms.
The PRC worked for nearly a year to establish rules for the program. Subsequently, the three utilities required to participate in the program — the Public Service Company of New Mexico, El Paso Electric and Southwestern Public Service — fought against multiple rules from the PRC.
One such rule the utilities found issues with was how billing would work.
The PRC directly barred utilities from charging community solar users — who also get bill credits for participating in the program — for transmission costs. However, the commission still received a billing proposal from SPS that would do exactly that. When commissioners wouldn’t allow the billing system, utilities turned to the courts.
SPS filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court in June 2022, and PNM and EPE later joined the case.
The legal battle ultimately turned out in the PRC’s favor when the court in March upheld the state’s billing rules. The written opinion released Thursday provided the reasoning for that.
“We … defer to the commission’s interpretation of (the law) unless it is unreasonable or unlawful. … It is neither,” the court wrote in its unanimous opinion.
The opinion also upheld other PRC actions, including having a third-party administrator oversee selection processes and rejecting SPS’s billing plan without a hearing.
