Alabama residents sue regulator over monthly solar panel charges

(Reuters) – Alabama residents and an environmental group have sued their state’s energy regulator in Montgomery federal court to challenge the approval of a monthly fee that public utility Alabama Power Co levies on customers who generate their own electricity with solar panels .

On a Monday complaint, four Alabama Power customers with solar panels on their properties and the Greater-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution accused the Alabama Public Service Commission (APSC) of violating the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) by allowing price discrimination against small power producers. to make.

Commission spokesman Cynthia Milledge said the agency is not commenting on pending lawsuits. Alabama Power did not immediately comment.

Keith Johnston, a plaintiffs’ attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a statement: “We are asking the court to require the Commission to follow the law so that Alabama Power stops unduly taxing private solar investments. .”

In 2013, APSC approved Alabama Power’s request to charge an additional $5 monthly fee per kilowatt of solar power for homes, small businesses and schools that install solar panels on-site. It later increased the charge to $5.41 per kilowatt, according to the complaint.

Birmingham-based Alabama Power has said the fee is needed to pay for its energy infrastructure, the complaint said.

The company, a subsidiary of Southern Company, supplies power to 1.4 million customers in the southern two-thirds of Alabama. It maintains more than 84,000 miles of power lines.

The plaintiffs, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and private law firm Ragsdale, say the fees are unfair and discriminatory because “Alabama Power had no information when developing the costs that solar customers bore specific infrastructure costs.” Solar customers use the grid less because they use less electricity, they say.

The APSC threw an administrative challenge on the same coalition’s monthly fee in September.

In June, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also declined to terminate the fee after the plaintiffs filed a petition with FERC. But FERC chairman Richard Glick and Commissioner Allison Clements expressed in an agreement their “concern that the Alabama Public Service Commission may be violating the Commission’s PURPA regulations” with the measure.

The case is Bankston v. Alabama Public Service Commission, US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, No. N/A

For James Bankston Jr et al: Keith Johnston of the Southern Environmental Law Center and Clay Ragsdale of Ragsdale

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