Something New Under the Sun: Competition & Consumer Protection Issues in Solar Energy

Constitution Center 400 7th St SW, Washington, DC 20024 | Directions & Nearby

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Event Description

The Federal Trade Commission held a one-day public workshop on June 21, 2016 to explore competition and consumer protection issues that may arise when consumers generate their own electric power by installing home solar photovoltaic (PV) panels – a practice known as solar distributed generation (DG). The workshop, which will consist of presentations and roundtable discussions, will focus on the following topics:

  1. The current state of the solar power industry, and anticipated technological advancements;
  2. Current regulatory approaches to compensating consumers for the power they generate, with a particular focus on net metering laws and regulations;
  3. Competition among solar DG firms, between solar DG firms and regulated utilities, and between solar generation and other power generation technologies; and
  4. Consumer protection issues, including how consumers get the information necessary to decide whether to install solar PV panels.

FTC staff live-tweeted the workshop from its @FTC Twitter account and used the hashtag #FTCsolar.

Video and Transcript

The workshop webcast videos are available for viewing (under Video, below). Viewers may want to review the panelist slide presentations (under Event Speakers, below) as they watch the videos. A transcript of the workshop will be available soon.

Public Comment Period

The FTC will be accepting public comments through August 22, 2016. See below for more information. See the announcement notice [PDF] for a list of questions that the FTC would like comments on.

Questions?

If you have a question about the workshop, please email solarworkshop@ftc.gov.

Event Details

FTC Privacy Policy

Under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) or other laws, we may be required to disclose to outside organizations the information you provide when you pre-register. The Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments, whether filed in paper or electronic form, and as a matter of discretion, we make every effort to remove home contact information for individuals from the public comments before posting them on the FTC website.

The FTC Act and other laws we administer permit the collection of your pre-registration contact information and the comments you file to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate. For additional information, including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, see the Commission’s comprehensive Privacy Policy.

This event is open to the public and may be photographed, videotaped, webcast, or otherwise recorded. By participating in this event, you are agreeing that your image — and anything you say or submit — may be posted indefinitely at ftc.gov or on one of the Commission's publicly available social media sites.