Solar opinion undermines growing industry

By Ben Inskeep, program director for Citizens Action Coalition, and

Zach Schalk, Indiana program director for Solar United Neighbors

Drive around Indiana and you’ll probably notice more and more homes and businesses powered by solar energy. This saves consumers money and creates a less expensive and more reliable grid for all Hoosiers. But a recent opinion issued by the Indiana Supreme Court could halt solar’s growth, unless our legislature takes action.

The issue is how solar owners should be credited for the electricity they generate, but don’t use themselves. When solar owners generate extra electricity, it flows out through their electric meter to their neighbors. Solar owners earn credit for this electricity on their bills. 

When the General Assembly first addressed compensation for solar owners back in 2017, they told Hoosiers they wanted to ensure fairness for all involved. But that’s not what’s happened.

The court destroyed the purpose of the legislation by allowing CenterPoint, a utility that provides electricity to customers in southwestern Indiana, to drastically slash the compensation customers receive for the extra solar energy they produce and share with their neighbors. Similar cases are pending on appeal for Indiana’s other four investor-owned utilities and now seem destined for the same fate. This radical change in solar policy makes it difficult, if not practically impossible, for many families, schools, houses of worship, farms, and businesses to offset the financial investment of installing solar panels. 

Under the previous framework, Hoosier consumers could reasonably expect to cover the costs of a rooftop solar system, which typically carry a warranty for 25 years or more, within 10-12 years. This ruling could double that payback period.

Make no mistake: Higher income people, often the early adopters of technology that eventually becomes commonplace, will still be able to afford energy freedom. But that dream is now destroyed for low- and middle-income Hoosiers looking to pursue cleaner, healthier energy solutions without breaking the bank. 

Indiana now trails all of our neighboring states when it comes to encouraging citizens and small businesses to go solar. By enabling more local solar in our neighborhoods, we can reduce wear and tear on the electric grid, increase reliability and resilience at a lower cost for the same electrical service, address inequities in access to affordable and clean energy, and literally put power back in the hands of people who are closest to it.

Not only does this ruling put Hoosiers at a competitive disadvantage with our neighbors, it also will set back the economic investment we have seen in recent years into clean energy such as solar and wind.

Ruling rejects progress for clean energy

In fact, putting the interests of monopoly utilities ahead of their ratepayers — all of us — is harming Hoosiers at nearly every turn. 

The clean power sector employs nearly 10,000 Hoosiers today and is projected to grow by nearly 30% over the next five years. But instead of embracing this opportunity for local job creation, this ruling risks wrecking the growing rooftop solar segment of that market before it can truly take off.

And, in an era of ever-increasing energy bills caused by the soaring costs of fossil fuels, this ruling will make it harder for Hoosiers to save with rooftop solar. Reducing the amount of local clean energy hurts us all by locking us into a dirtier, more expensive electric grid.

The only winners in this ruling are Indiana’s monopoly utilities who have pushed vigorously for this destructive policy change so they can maintain their powerful stranglehold and continue to earn large profits on the energy we all need to live.

By taking this step backward, Indiana is foolishly trying to swim against several strong currents — federal policy encouraging greater adoption of customer-owned distributed energy resources like solar and batteries; a rapidly changing energy marketplace driving innovation and investment around the country; and demand from Hoosiers around the state for local, clean, and affordable energy.

This was not the outcome that lawmakers desired. But now that the court has spoken, they have an opportunity to set the record straight when they come back into session this month. We hope members of the Indiana General Assembly will side with hard-working Hoosiers and fix the law so that homeowners and small businesses can once again be fairly credited for energy they send back to the grid for others to use.

Ben Inskeep has served as CAC’s Program Director since March 2022. His prior employment includes working as a policy analyst at the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center at North Carolina State University, and a utility analyst for EQ Research LLC, a clean energy policy consulting firm.

Zach Schalk currently serves as the Indiana Program Director for SUN. He is a passionate organizer and storyteller dedicated to promoting justice with more than a decade of experience as a communicator and organizer.