Nevada's Net Metering Change May Present Opportunities for Storage

Nevada’s public utilities commission (PUC) has changed the net metering rules for solar PV, effective January 1, 2016. Not only will this development erode the business case for new systems, but will also affect approximately 17,000 existing customers. SolarCity and Vivint have eliminated jobs in Nevada, and Sunrun has exited the solar PV market in the state. Two customers have filed a class-action lawsuit against utility NV Energy in protest of the decision. Although this rule change has been characterized as a bait-and-switch for solar PV customers, this is also an opportunity for residential energy storage under two scenarios.

The first scenario would be if residential energy storage with PV can be aggregated to deliver services to NV Energy. The aggregator—which could either be the utility itself or a third party—would share the payment with residential customers. In order to make the storage option appealing to customers that have invested heavily in solar PV, it would need to be offered using a low capital expenditures (CAPEX) business model. The value of the services delivered through the virtual power plant would need to at least cover the monthly grid connection charge and would also need to help the customer minimize the amount of solar PV energy exported to the grid and maximize self-consumption. The Nevada PUC could also opt to waive the grid connection fee for solar PV plus storage plants because distribution system issues would be mitigated by using a storage system.

Customer Disconnects

A second scenario that may present an opportunity for storage is if the storage can help customers disconnect completely from the grid. This would be a much more radical move for customers, but would help them avoid the grid connection charge. This charge starts at $12.75 to $17.90 per month in 2016 and is slated to increase to $38.51 per month by 2021. Although the yearly grid connection fee is relatively modest in 2016 at between $153 and $214, it is set to double to $462 within 5 years. Customers could spend over $1,500 over a 5-year period in grid connection charges alone. This solution’s business case would take many years to pay for both the battery and the solar PV. Therefore, this solution would also require some financing mechanism to ease the CAPEX burden on the homeowner in order to gain market traction. This scenario would be appealing to customers dissatisfied with the local utility, or who are looking to move off-grid for ideological reasons.

The chart below forecasts the power capacity and revenue of residential solar PV and energy storage systems—referred to by Guidehouse Insights as nanogrids—as 40.8 GW and $79.5 billion from 2015 to 2024. North America is slated to account for 16.8% of the global market over the 10-year period. One of the key issues to tapping into this market will be creative customer offerings and go-to-market strategies on the part of vendors in this space.

Solar PV plus Energy Storage Residential Nanogrid Capacity and Revenue by Region,

World Markets: 2015-2024

 (Source: Guidehouse Insights)