California is blaming an unlikely villain for your high energy bills
加州将你的高能源账单归咎于一个意想不到的罪魁祸首
Incentivizing solar power is a mainstay of environmentalist policy. But Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration says it’s costing everyone else.
激励太阳能发电是环保主义者政策的主要内容。但加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽森的政府表示这正在让其他人付出代价。
文件：Grid Alternatives 员工 Sal Miranda（右）和 Tony Chang 在加利福尼亚州普莫纳于 2023 年 10 月 19 日为一个低收入家庭安装免费的太阳能面板。
Mario Tama/Getty Images
By Stephen Council 由 Stephen Council 编写,
Tech Reporter 科技记者
March 5, 2025 2025 年 3 月 5 日
For years, California has pushed its residents to install solar panels on their homes with generous payments and tax breaks to boost the spread of the environmentally friendly tech. Hundreds of thousands of people bought in. But amid sky-high electricity rates, the state government is turning those residents into something of a scapegoat.
多年来，加利福尼亚一直推动居民在其家中安装太阳能电池板，通过慷慨的支付和税收减免来促进这种环保技术的普及。成千上万的人欣然接受了这一建议。但在电费飙升的情况下，州政府却将这些居民变成了某种替罪羊。
California regulators, analysts and even Gov. Gavin Newsom have recently blamed popular solar incentive programs for saddling other ratepayers with higher energy bills. A state ratepayers’ advocacy office argued in a December report that solar owners are being compensated too much for their panels’ excess energy and aren’t paying their “fair share” of the grid’s costs. Solar’s advocates flatly deny those contentions; Dave Rosenfeld, executive director of the Solar Rights Alliance, told SFGATE that officials’ arguments are “based on lies” and that they’re scapegoating solar owners as a convenient “villain.”
加利福尼亚的监管机构、分析师甚至加利福尼亚州长加文·纽森最近将流行的太阳能激励计划指责为给其他用户带来了更高的电费。一个州的消费者倡导办公室在 12 月的一份报告中指出，太阳能拥有者获得的补偿过多，没有支付“公平份额”的电网成本。太阳能的支持者坚决否认这些说法；太阳能权利联盟的执行董事戴夫·罗森菲尔德告诉 SFGATE，官员们的论点是“基于谎言”的，他们将太阳能拥有者作为方便的“替罪羊”进行指责。
Indeed, the arguments from state officials pit the energy bills of two groups of California consumers — the haves and have-nots of at-home solar — against each other. It’s a dramatic pivot from the state with more rooftop solar panels than any other but arrives as data shows that California’s residential energy costs are almost twice as much as the U.S. average. From January 2022 to February 2025, the residential rates for PG&E customers rose 41%, and for Southern California Edison customers, 26%.
确实，来自州官员的论点将加利福尼亚州消费者的电费问题归咎于两类家庭太阳能用户——拥有屋顶太阳能和没有屋顶太阳能的家庭——彼此对立。这是一个戏剧性的转变，尽管加利福尼亚拥有最多的屋顶太阳能板，但数据显示，加利福尼亚的住宅能源成本几乎是美国平均水平的两倍。从 2022 年 1 月到 2025 年 2 月，PG&E 的住宅费率上涨了 41%，而南加州爱迪生公司的住宅费率上涨了 26%。
Hundreds of thousands of Californians have at-home solar
数以十万计的加利福尼亚人安装了家用太阳能系统
As of year-end 2023, more than 1.7 million customers of California’s three major investor-owned utilities took advantage of the solar incentive programs known as Net Energy Metering (NEM) and Net Billing Tariff (NBT).
截至 2023 年底，加州三大投资者拥有的公用事业公司的超过 170 万客户利用了名为净能量计量（NEM）和净结算费率（NBT）的太阳能激励计划。
From the governor down to his appointees in the California Public Utilities Commission and its ratepayer advocacy office, state leaders have formed a unified front. The commission has go-to statistics: It says that solar incentive programs, mostly known as Net Energy Metering, or NEM — which pay solar owners for energy they send into the grid — aid solar owners and harm non-solar customers with a “cost shift” of more than $8 billion. The commission blames pro-solar programs for up to 25% of the cost of non-solar customers’ monthly bills.
从州长到加州公用事业委员会及其消费者倡导办公室的任命人员，州领导形成了统一战线。委员会有现成的数据：它说，太阳能激励计划，主要是净能量计量（NEM）——向向电网输送能源的太阳能业主支付费用——帮助太阳能业主，但损害非太阳能用户的“成本转移”超过 80 亿美元。委员会指责支持太阳能的计划占非太阳能用户每月账单成本的 25%。
The officials have turned solar incentives into a key part of their rhetoric on electricity policy. In October, Newsom issued an executive order asking regulators to investigate energy costs and programs. He wrote that though spending to reduce wildfire risk from electrical grid equipment is a key cause of rate increases, high rates have been “driven largely” by programs like NEM. Utilities commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper told SFGATE that non-solar customers, who are “disproportionately low-income,” are stuck with more of the system’s fixed costs than solar owners — that’s the “cost shift.”
官员们已经将太阳能激励措施作为其电力政策言论的关键部分。10 月，纽森发布了一项行政命令，要求监管机构调查能源成本和计划。他在命令中写道，尽管减少电气电网设备引发的野火风险的支出是导致费率上涨的主要原因，但高费率“主要”是由净计量计划（NEM）等项目推动的。公用事业委员会发言人特丽·普罗瑟告诉 SFGATE，非太阳能用户，尤其是“收入较低的人”，承担了系统固定成本的更多份额，而太阳能用户没有——这就是“成本转移”。
It’s a war of words that’s now coming to a head. In a Feb. 18 report responding to Newsom’s order, the commission proposed ideas for cutting electricity rates, and a few of them, if enacted, would cost solar panel owners badly. The regulators suggested kicking some solar customers off old NEM incentive plans and onto a 2023-launched version that pays less for excess power given to the grid, writing that it would “save non-participants billions of dollars.” Another commission idea would see solar owners pay a “grid benefits charge” to offset those people’s decreased payments toward grid maintenance.
这是一场语言战，现在正逐渐升级。在 2 月 18 日对纽森的命令作出回应的报告中，委员会提出了降低电费的想法，其中一些想法如果实施，将严重损害太阳能面板所有者的利益。监管机构建议将一些太阳能客户从旧的 NEM 激励计划中移除，并转到 2023 年启动的版本，该版本支付的多余电力给电网的费用较少，他们写道这将“为非参与者节省数十亿美元”。另一个委员会的想法是让太阳能业主支付“电网效益费”来抵消那些人减少的电网维护费用。
Solar advocates argue, though, that the $8 billion “cost shift” statistic often cited by the California Public Utilities Commission is completely wrong — professors from San Jose State and Stanford were among a group that signed a letter supporting a consultant’s solar-funded rebuttal of the stat. Prominent energy economist Severin Borenstein, a UC Berkeley professor who has advocated for stripping back solar incentives to better distribute fixed costs, then rebutted the consultant’s rebuttal. He calculated the “cost shift” onto non-solar residential customers as $4 billion.
太阳能倡导者认为，加州公共事业委员会经常引用的 80 亿美元“成本转移”统计数据完全错误——圣何塞州立大学和斯坦福大学的教授们签署了一封信，支持咨询公司的太阳能资助反驳。加州大学伯克利分校著名能源经济学家塞维恩·博伦斯坦教授也反驳了咨询公司的反驳，他计算出将“成本转移”给非太阳能住宅客户为 40 亿美元。
Dave Rosenfeld’s 150,000-member nonprofit, the Solar Rights Alliance, pushes for solar panel-friendly policies and against cuts to the net metering programs. He argued to SFGATE that greedy profit-seeking by the big utilities, rather than pro-solar programs, is driving up rates.
大卫·罗森菲尔德的 15 万名成员非营利组织太阳能权利联盟推动有利于太阳能板的政策，并反对削减净计量计划。他在 SFGATE 上表示，是大公用事业公司的贪婪利润驱动，而不是亲太阳能项目，导致了费率上涨。
“You know, this is just classic scapegoating,” Rosenfeld said. “It makes sense, because if you’re the utilities, you want to keep your gravy train going, but we’re hitting a breaking point [with prices], so you need to deflect attention away from what you’re actually doing to drive up rates. And so you need a scapegoat. And so they’ve invented one with rooftop solar.”
“你知道，这正是典型的替罪羊理论，”罗森菲尔德说。“这合乎逻辑，因为如果你是公用事业公司，你希望保持既得利益，但价格已经到了临界点，所以你需要转移人们的注意力，从而将人们的注意力从你实际上推高费率的行为上转移开。所以你需要一个替罪羊。于是他们创造了一个屋顶太阳能的替罪羊。”
The utility commission’s push to rethink solar rules is hardly new. In 2022, it cut the rate that solar owners can make for selling excess power to the grid. Tens of thousands of customers rushed to get solar built before a 2023 deadline, and then demand crashed. (It’s since mostly rebounded.) Rosenfeld remembers rallies and protests against the cutback on solar incentives but said the regulators “just didn’t listen.”
公用事业委员会推动重新考虑太阳能规则并不是什么新鲜事。2022 年，它降低了太阳能业主向电网出售多余电力的费率。成千上万的客户在 2023 年截止日期前急忙安装太阳能系统，然后需求骤降。（此后需求主要有所回升。）罗森菲尔德记得反对削减太阳能激励措施的集会和抗议，但他表示，监管机构“就是不听。”
The suggested “grid benefits charge” would continue the state’s turn away from solar incentives — Rosenfeld called it “nice talk for a solar tax.” He pointed to maligned goods that are taxed heavily, like cigarettes and gas, and asked why Californians with solar power should be hit with a similar fee, which might encourage fewer people to adopt the green energy source.
建议的“电网效益费”将继续远离太阳能激励措施——罗森菲尔德称之为“对太阳能税的漂亮说法”。他提到了像香烟和汽油等受到重税的商品，并问道，为什么拥有太阳能的加利福尼亚人应该被收取类似的费用，这可能会促使更多人不采用绿色能源。
“It is whiplash for many solar customers, to go from being encouraged to do this thing that makes sense to do, to then all of a sudden becoming the villain,” Rosenfeld said. “And becoming a villain, when right there in plain sight is a convicted criminal enterprise.” (In 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of unlawfully starting a fire after its equipment started the horrific 2018 Camp Fire.)
“这对许多太阳能客户来说是一种巨大的反差，从被鼓励去做一件有意义的事情，突然之间就变成了恶人，”罗森菲尔德说。“而就在眼前，是一个被判有罪的犯罪组织。”（2020 年，PG&E 因其设备引发可怕的 2018 年坎普大火而承认犯有 84 项过失杀人罪和一项非法纵火的重罪。）
PG&E spokesperson Mike Gazda declined to answer SFGATE’s questions about solar incentives on the record but wrote that the utility had dropped residential electricity bills by 5% from January 2024 to February 2025. (A new rate increase is set to hit customer bills this month.)
PG&E 发言人迈克·加兹达拒绝就太阳能激励措施回答 SFGATE 的问题，但写道，该公用事业公司从 2024 年 1 月到 2025 年 2 月降低了住宅电费 5%。（本月客户账单将面临新的费率上涨。）
“We recognize that higher costs, including energy bills, can be a challenge for customers,” he wrote. “We are laser focused on continuing our progress and exploring every opportunity to lower energy costs for our customers.”
“我们认识到，包括能源账单在内的更高成本可能会给客户带来挑战，”他写道。“我们专注于继续我们的进步，并探索一切机会以降低客户的能源成本。”
Jeremy Nichols lives in Sonoma County, in a rural area near Santa Rosa. He told SFGATE that the utility commission’s new proposals feel like the “violation of a contract” he’d agreed to when he invested in his at-home solar panels.
杰里米·尼科尔斯住在索诺玛县的一个靠近圣罗莎的农村地区。他对 SFGATE 说，公用事业委员会的新提案感觉像是“违反了他投资家庭太阳能板时同意的合同”。
Nichols said his household gets about two-thirds of its electricity from its solar system, and he acknowledged that the officials who set up pro-solar programs likely didn’t imagine so many people would buy in. Still, he doesn’t think NEM is the real issue. He pointed to PG&E’s $2.5 billion profit last year and that the state incentivizes the company to invest money in infrastructure like long transmission lines.
尼科尔斯说，他的家庭大约有三分之二的电力来自太阳能系统，他也承认，制定支持太阳能计划的官员们可能没想到会有这么多人购买太阳能。尽管如此，他认为 NEM 并不是真正的问题。他指出了太平洋燃气电力公司去年 25 亿美元的利润，以及该州鼓励公司投资基础设施如长输电线路。
“Solar is not the problem,” Nichols argued. “The problem is that they’re spending all this money building long lines because, of course, that’s where their profit comes from. They’re blaming solar because we’re a small group and easy to blame.”
“太阳能不是问题，”尼科尔斯争辩说，“问题是他们把所有的钱都花在了建设长输电线上，因为当然，这才是他们的利润来源。他们把责任推到太阳能身上，因为我们是一个小群体，容易被指责。”
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/california-blames-solar-panel-programs-20202781.php
有一定合理性的一面
不公正或片面的一面