I’ve posted several times, and I’m repeating every where I go, that we are heading for a electric utility train wreck in this country if we do not reconfigure our regulatory and pricing structure for the grid to reflect the emerging disruptive effects of solar and renewable technology.
The New York Times recently reported on utilities beginning to push back against consumers who want to place solar panels on their rooftops. The electric companies are concerned that they will be stuck with the enormous expense of maintaining a large electric grid while more and more customers opt out of the system during the most expensive, and for utilities, profitable, part of the day – afternoon electric peaks, yet expect to have the grid in place as a back up system. This is a real fear, as a recent survey of large US companies with revenues north of 1 billion reported that 51% of of the respondents would be expanding company-owned renewable generation within 5 years, and for 16 percent those expansions would be “significant”.
Wall Street has noticed. Utilities have noticed. Waiting for policy makers, especially at the state level to wake up.
The most recent evidence for the coming crunch comes from Arizona, potentially a leading edge solar state, where a local phony astro-turf group has begun running Fox News style ads bad mouthing solar and the, presumably, greedy and irresponsible people who are using it. I’m going to take a wild guess and hazard that this group has roots with the Koch brothers, Americans for Prosperity, and the like, and the local utilities may be getting drawn in to an unholy association with that Excess of Evil.
A politically charged marketing campaign has popped up in the debate over solar power in Arizona, and it might be funded indirectly by Arizona Public Service Co., the company asking regulators to force new solar customers to pay significantly more on their monthly bills.
APS on Friday asked state energy regulators to change the rules for how electric companies give solar customers credit for the electricity they send to the power grid.
Solar companies months ago began their own marketing campaign to fight the proposed changes, which they see as a threat to the residential rooftop solar industry. By adding $50 to $100 a month to solar customers’ bills, the changes would take away much of the financial incentive for using solar.
A Washington, D.C.-based conservative organization called 60 Plus, which focuses on seniors’ issues such as taxes, Social Security and Medicare, has produced an online video and created a website, azsolarfacts.com, in which it takes the side of APS in the solar debate.
The 60 Plus group has previously received funding from billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. The group also received $9 million from an Arizona political consultant named Sean Noble, Bloomberg reported in October.
Noble is a paid consultant for APS, though utility officials would not disclose his services or discuss whether he was involved in crafting the 60 Plus campaign.
“Was it made with resources that could have originated with APS? I don’t know,” APS spokesman Jim McDonald said. “We are not directly funding them. We didn’t write the script, review the script.”
They are now being opposed by a conservative citizens Pro solar group, Tell Utilities Solar Wont’ be Killed, or TUSK – significantly chaired by Barry Goldwater Jr.
From the dontkillsolar website:
“As a son of Arizona, I know we have no greater resource than our sun. Republicans want the freedom to make the best choice and the competition to drive down rates.That choice may mean they save money, and with solar that is the case. Solar companies have a track record of aggressively reducing costs in Arizona. We can’t let solar energy – and all its advantages and benefits it provides us – be pushed aside by monopolies wanting to limit energy choice. That’s not the conservative way and it’s not the American way.”
The Issue
Arizona Public Service wants to extinguish the independent rooftop solar market in Arizona to protect its monopoly. How? They want to eliminate the policy that lets homeowners get fair credit for the surplus power they return to the grid. This is called net metering and it’s successful in 43 states. APS wants the Arizona Corporation Commission to change the rules so the utility can keep homeowners’ excess solar energy for free while maintaining its monopoly status.
The events in Arizona resonate with recent civil war in the Georgia Tea Party, where solar proponents won out over the Koch funded AFP group.
A proposal by Public Service Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald to more than double the amount of solar energy produced by Georgia Power pitted the Tea Party Patriots against the local chapter of Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity (of the notorious “No Climate Tax Pledge”). Virginia Galloway, director of AFP for the state, warned the group’s 50,000 Georgia members that the proposal could increase electricity rates by up to 40 percent, and that this “mandate” — as she called it — would “reduce the reliability of every appliance and electronics gadget in your home.” But the Patriots see an increase in the availability of solar as an expansion of the free market and the ratepayers’ right to choose their energy sources.
Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of a broader long-term electrical generation plan that requires Atlanta-based Georgia Power Co. to increase its solar power capacity by 525 megawatts by the end of 2016.
Of that amount, 425 megawatts would come from large “utility-scale” solar projects and 100 would come from projects small enough to be installed by individual residential or commercial property owners.
Georgia Power already is working to develop 260 megawatts of solar energy through two projects previously approved by the PSC.
But supporters of a motion by Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald to up the ante argued that recent technological advancements have brought down the costs of solar power enough to justify additional investment.
“We’ve got to approach this in a businesslike fashion and try to stay ahead of the curve,” McDonald said after the vote.
But Commissioner Stan Wise, the only member of the panel to vote against the proposal, said solar energy is still an inadequate substitute for “baseload” power generated by coal, natural gas and nuclear energy because of its intermittent nature.
He accused his fellow commissioners of putting ratepayers at risk by moving too quickly to embrace politically popular solar energy.
“You are engaged in Washington-style, feel-good energy policy … social engineering,” Wise told his colleagues. “I feel what you are about do to is both imprudent and irresponsible.”
Wise also objected to the commission’s decision to force an increase in solar capacity onto Georgia Power.
So, we are seeing a schism open up on the tea party right over renewable energy and protecting the environment.
Lay in popcorn.
Below, the offending anti-solar ad from the Arizona Koch-sniffing group, “prosper hq”.
It all reads to me as a very eloquent argument for a new governmental purely-renewable-energy utility, since our non renewable energy utilities are actively working against the best interests of the United States.
If energy utilities are actively working against the interests of the U.S. public, then it is time to have a very serious and sustained conversation abut the Nationalization of our energy system.
And this would be a very significant advance. The corporate for-profit free market model has failed almost completely to implement renewable energy, can not be relied upon to somehow succeed quickly enough to save us from disaster, has no easily conceivable motivation to even try.
But a public commons-based renewable energy utility has every reason to succeed. Indeed, the whole complicated and depressing two decade-long thought process for how to induce our current economic system to embrace renewable technology – the seeming impossibility of success, which drives most people from even pursuing the matter – disappears when one looks at a better way to approach our renewable energy future:
And that is as a public utility.
Or at least running on a not for profit business model.
I’m doubling my position in Orville Redenbacher Inc.
A fight between the Tea People and the Koch Suckers sounds wonderful. Can we arm both sides?
Terry
Peter, have a look
Extensive Dark Snow, Very Large Melt Lakes Visible Over West Slope of Greenland as Late Season Melt Pulse Continues
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/extensive-dark-snow-very-large-melt-lakes-visible-over-west-slope-of-greenland-as-late-season-melt-pulse-continues/
fascinating
Methane anomaly following record temperature and extensive late season melt over West-Greenland ice sheet, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=475113332584921&set=a.201065459989711.43923.196805450415712&type=1
Video / Greenland Anomaly: Late Season Melt Pulse + Methane Emissions August 4th 2013
http://climatestate.com/2013/08/05/greenland-anomaly-late-season-melt-pulse-methane-emissions-august-4th-2013/
Paying consumers the full consumer cost of mid day power is probably excessive. The buyback rate should allow something for transmission and other distribution costs. In any other business a profit margin would be allowed for.
A realistic buyback rate is essential for the long term development, deep penetration, of solar. However if the utilities overplay this necessity, full stand alone systems will become viable. If the majority of former customers go completely off grid, there is no scope for any profit.
test…
hmm. Why did my last two comments not get posted? No insults or bad words…
Anyway, here it is again:
Since my utility has stuck at 3% renewable for the 11 years I’ve been using them, even though it’s clear the people it serves want this number to increase, they don’t leave us much option other than to buy our own.
They might take a hint. But they won’t.
So how about this: we go completely off grid, rather than getting soaked by them because we want more renewable. Good for everyone.
Good luck going completely off grid! 🙂
But in most of America, it is not possible.
Most homes in the U.S. can not even come close to producing a significant portion of their electrical needs with the relatively small amount of space on their roofs. To say nothing of actually using their green electricity to replace their fossil fuel use.
Most homes in the U.S. are not located in areas where there is enough sunshine (or wind) to accomplish what we all agree we need to accomplish – replace all our fossil fuel energy with renewable. You think a home in the northeast can make enough electricity to run electric heaters at night during the winter? They can’t make enough electricity to run lights, the electric stove and and a TV during the winter.
And no – burning wood in a woodstove is not an allowable choice.
So the need for large-scale renewable projects, which will send green electricity where it is needed, is ->enormous.<-
Interestingly similar conversations are happening here in Australia as the significant take up of domestic solar PVs is causing ripples in our energy market.
From this article at http://theconversation.com/were-headed-for-an-electricity-war-heres-how-to-stop-it-16582.
“Fortunately, some electricity industry leaders recognise the potential dangers ahead. As Craig Severence describes it:
The unspoken fear of all utility managers is the “Death Spiral Scenario”. In this nightmare, a utility commits to build new equipment. However, when electric rates are raised to pay for the new plant, the rate shock moves customers to cut their kWh use. The utility then raises its rates even higher – causing a further spiral as customers cut their use even more… In the final stages of that death spiral, the more affluent customers drastically cut purchases by implementing efficiency and on-site [solar PV] power, but the poorest customers have been unable to finance such measures…”
This is a scenario we can and should avoid. Our electricity networks will be crucial to determining whether the transition to clean energy will be smooth and efficient or wasteful and acrimonious. We urgently need our network businesses to embrace emerging clean energy technologies, to focus on consumer benefit and to develop more sustainable business models. For this to happen, we need governments to act.”