The California Supreme Court ruled a lower bench was too deferential to state utility regulators in a challenge to policy change that reduced the price utilities pay to rooftop solar customers for their excess energy.
The state Court of Appeal will now have to go back and review whether the California Public Utilities Commission’s policy was in line with state law.
Justice Leondra Kruger, writing the opinion for the court, said Thursday’s ruling does not decide whether the lower court’s conclusion that the net energy metering solar tariff was consistent with the public utilities code was correct, “only that the Court of Appeal erred by applying an unduly deferential standard of review to reach that conclusion.”
She noted that for decades state lawmakers had required much more deference to the commission’s decisionmaking as long as it “regularly pursued its authority.” But the Legislature had shifted course at the end of the 20th century by expanding judicial review of the commission’s decisions.
