Dive Brief:

• The Nevada Public Utilities Commission this week extended the time customers have to opt into to net metering rates, after thousands with active applications missed a February deadline.
• Regulators last year voted to allow existing rooftop solar customers to retain the net metering rates it eliminated in 2015, and also allowed about 8,000 customers with active applications to opt into the same rate.
• NV Energy, SolarCity, Sunrun and other installers agreed to extend the net metering application deadline to July 1 for those customers. Regulators signed off on the extension this week.

Dive Insight:

For all the controversy surrounding Nevada's 2015 net metering decision, regulators, installers and NV Energy alike are working to ensure systems that are still eligible ultimately get connected at a higher remuneration rate.

There were more than 23,000 customers automatically grandfathered in to net metering rates, but this month NV Energy explained that a sizeable chunk of customers required to opt into the grandfathered rates by notifying the utility had failed to do so

"As of that deadline, less than 30 percent of these customers had opted into the grandfathered rates," the utility said in a statement last week. "The parties are optimistic that with additional time, more eligible customers will elect to opt into the program at grandfathered rates."

In late 2015, the regulators voted to end net metering and replace it with a new rate structure which lowered remuneration from the retail rate to a credit of $0.09/kWh from $0.11/kWh—with the credit eventually declining to $0.026/kWh by 2020. After significant controversy and job losses in the state, the commission voted to grandfather in rates for existing systems and those with active applications.

The PUCN also later unanimously voted to restore full retail rate net metering to NV Energy subsidiary Sierra Pacific Power's service territory in northern Nevada.