NY has a plan to make solar energy affordable. But utilities can't work out how to bill customers

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New York’s all-out push to expand the use of solar energy is being undercut by utilities who can’t master the one task needed to make it work – calculating a bill.

Nearly eight years ago, New York cleared the way for community solar programs to offer discounts on energy bills to state residents who agreed to get their electricity from a field of solar panels that would be located nearby.

It’s been touted as a path to clean energy for low-and moderate-income residents who may not have the money or desire to put solar panels on their roofs.

But interviews with customers, solar company owners and state and town officials reveal the program, officially known as Community Distributed Generation, is struggling to hold onto customers frustrated with overcharges, charges that should be credits and bills that arrive months late.

This is just one of the myriad consumer billing issues that have entangled New York utility companies in recent months. Estimated meter readings and customer service snags have utility customers from Rochester to Westchester County dealing with unexplained, exorbitant bills.

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In 2019, David Weiner bought into a solar farm near his home in Ithaca, New York. With tax breaks and other incentives, it seemed like a worthwhile investment.

Then the billing issues with New York State Electric and Gas began.

“It’s been a huge source of frustration for me,” Weiner said. “The billing with NYSEG is a nightmare. Sometimes we’ll get two bills in a month that are spaced two to three weeks apart and then we can go a month and a half without a bill.”

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Weiner’s plan differs from most community solar programs since it required him to buy the solar panels that are located on a farm in Candor, New York. Other programs give customers discounts on their monthly bills for enrolling.

With bills that lack transparency or arrive months later, Weiner says he’s had a hard time figuring out if he’s saving money.

'It was a screwed-up mess'

Wilbur Card signed up for a community solar program in February 2022. He was promised a 10% credit on his monthly bill for getting electricity from a field of solar panels installed near his home.

In November, after nine months of frustration, Card had enough. He decided to drop the plan after receiving bills from NYSEG that lagged months behind. And he was getting a separate monthly bill from the solar company.

“I got the bill in December but it was electric that was used in September,” Card said. “I couldn’t ever marry the two to find out if I was getting any benefit. It was a screwed-up mess. I told them I never wanted to see another (bill).”

He decided to put solar panels on the roof in November, but that’s done little to improve his billing troubles.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Card, who’s retired and lives in Florida during the winter. “I never had a problem with NYSEG. But it seemed to all start when I signed a solar contract.”

Towns across the state that created partnerships with solar companies say they’re no longer pitching the plan to residents.

“Many of our residents are seniors on fixed incomes and cannot afford these lump sum payments,” town leaders in New Lebanon wrote to the Public Service Commission this month. “These problems have forced New Lebanon to put a hold on future Community Solar promotions until the billing issues can be worked out.”

Solar companies push to hold utilities accountable

Solar companies have been pressing the state to take action against the utilities, by imposing penalties or fines.

Arcadia, the nation’s largest community solar program, has some 150 projects in New York with roughly 80,000 residential customers.

Austin Perea, the company’s New York policy manager, has petitioned the state Public Service Commission, which oversees the utilities, to make billing a criteria utilities can be evaluated on when they apply for rate increases.

“It is not making it hard to acquire customers every year,” Perea said of the billing issues. “However, it does really make it harder to retain customers. If you’ve been on a community solar project and have had a bad experience due to utility billing and crediting issues, you’re less likely to recommend that product to others. So these issues definitely have some reputational second order effects to the community solar program that we’re starting to see surface right now.”

Other company officials declined to comment on the record amid concerns they would shed a negative light on the program.

“Community solar expands access to clean energy by offering zero-down subscriptions with guaranteed savings to anyone who pays an electric bill,” said Jonathan Cohen, the policy director for the New York Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. “Unfortunately, utilities have failed to do their job, delaying much-needed bill savings for working families.”

The state defended the solar program, saying it offered a way for low- to moderate-income families who may not own homes to access the savings renewable energy can provide.

But a smooth billing process with utility companies is crucial − “Getting the utility billing and crediting processes performing accurately and timely for these programs is of the utmost importance to ensure their success," said PSC spokesman James Denn.

The $250 million program has seen explosive growth in recent years, establishing New York as the top community solar market in the nation.

Utilities facing litany of billing issues

The troubles with solar billing come as the state’s utilities confront a host of other billing issues and state investigations.

In December, the PSC released a damning report on Central Hudson Gas and Electric’s September 2021 rollout of its $88 million billing system.

The six-month probe revealed some 8,000 customers who were overcharged and another 1,000 who were double-billed.

The state Department of Public Service is investigating NYSEG/RG&E following a surge in customer complaints after a new billing system debuted in September.

The state probe linked some of the utilities’ troubles to estimated meter readings.

In both investigations, the state found the utility billing systems appeared to be unable to process complex bills like those for solar and renewable energy.

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NYSEG/RG&E has plans to hire more customer service workers and meter readers and will increase the use of “smart meters” to cut down on estimating customer bills.

The PSC is contemplating a series of fines and penalties to force utilities to improve their solar billing issues.

The PSC is also pushing utilities to create a single bill for community solar customers, and urging a changeover to automated billing, which would likely eliminate errors cropping up in customer bills.

Most state utilities use a manual system to charge customers. Only Orange & Rockland has created an automated system for community solar billing, state records show.

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Central Hudson and NYSEG/RG&E officials say they’re working to automate their billing system.

Roughly five percent of the utility’s customers participate in CDG.

“CDG billing is highly complex,” Central Hudson spokesman Joseph Jenkins said. “One of the reasons Central Hudson adopted its new billing platform was to handle CDG accounts and other non-traditional billing scenarios, which previously were calculated manually.”

The utility has been able to automate about half its CDG accounts – those that receive separate bills from Central Hudson and the CDG provider.

“The transition to the new billing platform unfortunately presented many challenges. Since then, substantial progress has been made,” Jenkins said.

Calculations for single-bill customers are still being done manually. “Work to automate for these bills is ongoing, and we continue to implement further refinements to credit these customers automatically,” Jenkins said. “We have dedicated a substantial workforce to process these manual bills.”

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NYSEG/RG&E spokeswoman Alexis Arnold said the utility hopes to have a new automated billing process by May “to ensure Community Distributed Generation bills and solar credits are issued in a timely manner.”

“This new technology will ultimately phase out the manual billing process being used by utility companies that participate in the solar credit program,” she added.

Weiner, who has experience in computer software development, has a hard time understanding why this has taken so long.

“The technology is all there,” he said.

He recently called his solar company to let them know he might have a solution. He hasn't gotten a call back.

Thomas C. Zambito is a reporter on The USA Today Network's New York State Team. He can be reached at tzambito@lohud.com.