California isn’t short on lofty goals: Lawmakers have vowed to zero out the state’s carbon emissions by 2045, build 2.5 million new homes by the end of the decade and swap gas-burning appliances with electric ones in 7 million homes over the next 12 years. Now California’s chief utility regulator is considering a new rooftop solar policy that a chorus of critics say will make it harder for the state to meet any of those ambitious targets.

On Oct. 12, the California Public Utilities Commission will vote on whether to reduce the payments that owners of solar panel-equipped apartment buildings receive for the electricity they generate on their rooftops. The decision could mirror an overhaul that the commission adopted late last year for sun-powered single-family homes and is part of a larger battle among environmentalists and energy policymakers over the role that individually-owned solar panels should play in the state’s planned divorce from fossil fuel-derived energy.

In both cases, the new rules only apply to new customers.

Supporters of the rule change — the state’s major electric utilities chief among them — argue that the new proposed rates, which vary over the course of a day, better reflect the actual value that rooftop solar panels provide to the electrical grid while offering a fairer shake to customers who don’t have the luxury of living beneath solar panels.

The new pricing system is also designed to encourage property owners to  pair solar panels with batteries, which can store up solar energy in the middle of the day when it’s abundant and cheap and dispatch it when the grid needs it most after the sun sets and when the CPUC’s proposed adjusted rates are higher.

“Under these new rules I have pretty serious concerns that entire building electrification projects just won’t pencil out anymore.”

But a notably diverse coalition of California interest groups have banded together to argue otherwise. Landlords, tenant rights organizations, affordable housing advocates, environmental nonprofits and the building industry — which rarely all agree — now say that the policy would only “eviscerate” the multifamily solar market. 

What’s more, they argue, the proposed change runs counter to a host of ambitious policy goals that California lawmakers have set out to combat climate change, air pollution and the affordable housing crisis.

“This proposed decision seems to go right in the opposite direction,” said Bob Raymer, technical director at the California Building Industry Association, a lobbying group that opposes the regulatory overhaul. “It’s nuts. I’ve been doing this stuff for over 40 years and this one is just baffling.”

If this argument sounds familiar, a version has played out in public once before. 

In December, the commission cut the payments that homeowners with rooftop solar arrays receive by roughly 75%. The decision came after months of debate, with both sides claiming to speak in the interest of clean energy and economic justice.

Previously, utilities were required to pay homeowners roughly the retail rate for electricity produced by a photovoltaic array and exported back to the grid. Utilities have long chafed at that arrangement, joining organized utility workers and even some environmental groups, in arguing that the more cost-effective way to supercharge clean energy production is to focus on utility-scale (read: big) projects. That’s opposed to the disaggregated fleet of photovoltaic arrays, found disproportionately on the homes of the well-to-do, who were able to skimp on the costs of grid maintenance and upgrades, effectively shunting that onto everyone else’s monthly bills.

The CPUC agreed with that argument and replaced that retail tariff with a much lower, adjustable fee. 

That’s more or less what is being considered this time around for apartment building owners, but with one highly contested difference. 

Even with these lower payments, single-family homeowners with solar can still boost the benefit of their array by using the electricity they generate on site. Every kilowatt hour “self-consumed” is a kilowatt hour that the homeowner doesn’t have to pay in high retail prices. That can add up to significant savings.

But under the proposed overhaul for apartment dwellers, no such savings would be allowed. All of the electricity generated would count as an “export” to the grid and get compensated at the lower wholesale rate. Likewise, all electricity used by the residents of that apartment building would need to be purchased from the utility at retail. For accounting purposes, there would be no“self-consumption” allowed.