Battle over solar panels warms up

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is from the Washington Examiner, which makes the Washington Times look middle of the road. Take this with a carton of salt.

Battle over solar panels warms up

By Zack Colman | March 2, 2015 | 5:00 am

A flareup over solar panels is growing between electricity regulators, who say that consumers need more protection, and the upstart solar industry, who say those efforts are just a move by utilities to stunt their growth.

Advocates of more rules, including traditional electric companies, point to instances in which third-party solar installers have signed unwitting customers to 20-year contracts that include an annual escalation in electricity rates higher than U.S. Energy Information Administration projections.

For example, Summerlin Energy told would-be customers that they would save money with the Las Vegas-based solar installer because power rates were due for a 10-percent increase each year. Historical EIA data show, however, a 2.3 percent bump between 1993 and 2013. It forecast a 2.1 percent yearly increase from 2014 to 2033.

Third-party solar financing is buoyed by a 30 percent federal tax credit, which expires at the end of 2016. The installation company collects that credit in exchange for signing up customers for long-term contracts. ... Even solar champions outside the industry have pointed to potential problems in the emerging and booming third-party solar field, which accounts for two-thirds of installations.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Utilities wage campaign against rooftop solar

Utilities wage campaign against rooftop solar

By Joby Warrick March 7 at 8:01 PM
@jobywarrick

Three years ago, the nation’s top utility executives gathered at a Colorado resort to hear warnings about a grave new threat to operators of America’s electric grid: not superstorms or cyberattacks, but rooftop solar panels. ... If demand for residential solar continued to soar, traditional utilities could soon face serious problems, from “declining retail sales” and a “loss of customers” to “potential obsolescence,” according to a presentation prepared for the group. “Industry must prepare an action plan to address the challenges,” it said.

The warning, delivered to a private meeting of the utility industry’s main trade association, became a call to arms for electricity providers in nearly every corner of the nation. Three years later, the industry and its fossil-fuel supporters are waging a determined campaign to stop a home-solar insurgency that is rattling the boardrooms of the country’s government-regulated electric monopolies.

The campaign’s first phase—an industry push for state laws raising prices for solar customers—failed spectacularly in legislatures around the country, due in part to surprisingly strong support for solar energy from conservatives and evangelicals in traditionally “red states.” But more recently, the battle has shifted to public utility commissions, where industry backers have mounted a more successful push for fee hikes that could put solar panels out of reach for many potential customers.

In a closely watched case last month, an Arizona utility voted to impose a monthly surcharge of about $50 for “net metering,” a common practice that allows solar customers to earn credit for the surplus electricity they provide to the electric grid. Net metering makes home solar affordable by sharply lowering electric bills to offset the $10,000 to $30,000 cost of rooftop panels. ... A Wisconsin utilities commission approved a similar surcharge for solar users last year, and a New Mexico regulator also is considering raising fees. In some states, industry officials have enlisted the help of minority groups in arguing that solar panels hurt the poor by driving up electricity rates for everyone else.

[eridani]

2. Not entirely unjustified--sort of like electric cars

They cause as much road wear as gasoline vehicles, but if roads are funded only by gas taxes, electric car owners don't pay. The grid still needs upkeep regardless of how much power you put back into it, so charging a maintenance fee is reasonable, IMO.

[NYC_SKP]

3. This is a non-issue, that meeting made sense, you should check out the slides that were used:

OK. Before anyone puts on their tin hat, they should READ material from the actual presentation:

It can be found here:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1374670-2012-eei-board-and-chief-executives-meeting.html#document/p48/a191712

The Post, here, is trying to foment outrage with an organization, the Edison Electric Institute, using ridiculous language rather than facts.

First of all, "private meetings" are common among all types of organizations. You can't just walk into an EEI meeting, or an Emily's list meeting, or an NREL meeting, there's no surprise there.

Secondly, EEI represents investor owned utilities which, like your favorite grocer or shoe seller, has to stay in business or be sold to another company which will have to, guess what, stay in business and be profitable.

So, three years ago, the organization sees more and more small installations on the horizon and they realize that a number of problems might occur:

Is the grid stable and robust enough to take on additional generation? (often no)

If fewer people are needing electrons from the utility, but are still connected in order to have power at night, and a place to send their surplus energy, what is a fair way to charge them for access to that grid?

If fewer people are using electricity but costs for maintaining the grid remain the same or rise, do regular customers have to start paying more???

>>>>These are all fair questions, but to many people utility companies are just big bad bullies out to rip us off.

It's a shame that people know so little about their electricity, the different sources used to create it, and how it gets to the customers.

Peace.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Thanks for the reply. I'll look at the presentation. NT

Last edited Tue Mar 10, 2015, 09:25 AM - Edit history (1)

[hunter]

5. I'd like to rethink residential power entirely; to experiment with alternative systems.

Maybe give free electricity to people who agree to have their service limited to one amp. That's enough to run a few LED lights, charge a few cellphones, but with battery storage that's maybe four or five kilowatt hours a day.

This would create a huge incentive to develop easy-to-install and economical battery systems, very low energy appliances, and solar systems for heating, cooling, and additional power. At the same time it would discourage people living in poverty from resorting to candles and other dangerous means of lighting when they can't pay the electric bill and their power is cut off.

In high density urban areas, it might also make district heating and cooling more attractive.

Does every home need one or two hundred amp electric service? Maybe so if electric cars become popular, but the existing residential electric system with solar panels and synchronous inverters tacked onto it isn't exactly robust, and if you don't have batteries then any solar panels on your roof are worthless when the network fails .

In the larger picture it seems to me if every house is required to have electrical service to be considered legally habitable, then it ought to be supplied electricity by a government entity and not a for-profit corporation.