Dive Brief:

• Arizona regulators could decide the fate of rooftop solar in the state as soon as this week. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) is wrapping up the second day of hearings today on the state's policy on net metering for rooftop solar systems, which is being challenged by Arizona Public Service as placing too much of a financial burden on ratepayers who do not have solar panels on their roofs. The meeting can be viewed here on the ACC website beginning at 10 a.m. MST (12:00 p.m. EST).
• A combination of Arizona's net-metering regime and the state's abundant sunshine have led to an explosion in rooftop solar installation of approximately 500 per month, a trend that is shifting $18 million in annual infrastructure costs to non-solar customers, the utility says. It wants regulators to either add a charge to solar customers' bills or lower the price it will pay for buying excess electricity produced by rooftop solar arrays.  
• The solar industry argues that an additional monthly charge of between $50 and $100 per solar household would wipe out one advantage of going solar.

Dive Insight: 

The battle in Arizona is being watched closely. Forty-three states have some form of net-metering policy and the recent plunge in the price of photovoltaic panels, coupled with state and federal subsidies, have produced more solar distributed generation than either utilities or regulators may have expected when net metering was first adopted. The net-metering policies are another factor pushing the utility industry to rethink its business model.