The idea that Virgin Islander homeowners could produce electricity with solar panels on their roofs and sell the power to the Water and Power Authority has been around for over two decades.
The Legislature approved the territory’s first net metering program in 2009. It set a cap on how much power WAPA would buy — 15 megawatts territory-wide, 10 on St. Thomas, and five on St. Croix.
The caps were met in 2015, and work on a new program began. Karl Knight, presently executive director of WAPA, was director of the Energy Office, where many of the details for the new program were worked out. The program was in place in 2020.
Thursday, at a Public Services Commission meeting, it was noted that more than 800 applications had been made for the program. Still, no applicant was getting credit for the power it was supplying to WAPA. It appeared that at least 150 had reached the final stage, and WAPA only had to provide them with a meter.
Commissioner David Hughes said the program was languishing because WAPA did not want it to succeed. Hughes commented during a period of the meeting when he and several others in the Zoom meeting were cut off from the commission meeting room where Knight was making a presentation.
Hughes said the program was “dead in the water” when it reached WAPA.
The program now starts with the applicant submitting a letter and checklist to the Energy Office. Then, the applicant goes through a permitting process with the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. It was reported that DPNR and WAPA had problems with the program because of staffing shortages.
Knight said applicants were not being connected with WAPA because the utility did not have meters on hand. He said the utility expects to receive more than 1,000 meters next week. He said he was not sure if any of those meters could be used to connect net metering customers. However, he did say they could be used to resolve another problem discussed at the meeting — customers complaining about malfunctioning or missing meters.
Hughes said the present situation, in which no one knows which net metering customers are sending power to the grid and how much is being sent, is “dangerous.”
As for customers’ complaints, the authority recently provided a list of pending customer bill adjustments for the period July to September. The staff reported that it was not clear when the adjustments would be made or that the affected customer agreed with the amount of the bill adjustments. The staff report also stated, “During this period, PSC staff received an increase in customer complaints relative to estimated bills, higher than normal bills and nonresponding meters.”
The commission is also preparing to investigate the territory’s ferry rates. The Virgin Islands Code requires the commission to perform a rate investigation at least once every five years.
The investigation is to determine the appropriate rates for the franchisees. At the meeting, the commission voted to appoint Jed John Hope to preside over the investigation.
Commissioners in attendance included Chair Pedro Williams, Raymond Williams, Clement Magras, Laura Nichols-Samms and David Hughes.
