This should help separate the principled conservatives from the dittohead wingnuts.
As more and more conservative citizens grasp the obvious virtues of renewable energy, and as they continue to see the Koch funded disinformation machine brought to bear against them, and against freedom to generate and sell energy – will they begin to wonder if maybe those guys that are lying to them about solar, were lying to them about climate, as well?
Conservative solar proponents on Saturday accused Americans For Prosperity of launching a “campaign of deception” against a ballot petition that would allow those in Florida who generate electricity from the sun to sell that power directly to others.
In a news release Saturday, Conservatives for Energy Freedom, part of a bi-partisan coalition leading the ballot petition, said inaccurate statements have been circulating in e-mails from Americans For Prosperity.
The e-mail criticizes the ballot initiative as an effort about “money, and using government and taxpayers to prop up the solar industry. The solar industry cannot survive without taxpayer funded subsidies and mandates.”
In addition, the e-mail asserts that the coalition, Floridians for Solar Choice, is merely “a front group for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE)” and that the environmental group is funded by liberal, California-based activist Tom Steyer.
Steve Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance, said his organization has never received money directly from Steyer and “there is no Tom Steyer money associated with this effort at this point.” Smith said the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Action Fund is “providing some early support for this effort.”
Tory Perfetti, Florida director of Conservatives for Energy Freedom and Floridians for Solar Choice, said statements about mandates for subsidies or purchases of solar over any other form of energy also are inaccurate.
“This ballot initiative will open up the energy market in Florida to freedom of choice and allow commerce to be conducted through the free market,” said Perfetti, a conservative Republican. “This initiative will not mandate the purchase of solar nor will you find anywhere in the ballot language anything which says that solar will be subsidized, so to say otherwise is false.”
Chris Hudson, Florida director of Americans For Prosperity, said his organization will hold a news conference next week in Tallahassee to discuss concerns about the solar and the ballot initiative. He said the bottom line is, “We should not favor one source of energy over the other in the Constitution or anywhere else. Solar cannot compete in a free market. It relies on government mandates and taxpayer funded subsidies to make it feasible.”
Hudson cited a Louisiana study that found those on the grid paid more because of those who adopted solar.
But that contradicts other studies and reports, including one in Nevada last year that found benefit for those who remain on the grid.
The ballot initiative and the coalition, Floridians for Solar Choice, have forged a unique group that includes the tea party and Christian Coalition conservatives as well as Libertarians; liberal environmentalists such as the Southern Alliance, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace; Physicians for Social Responsibility; and the Florida Retail Federation.
If the proposed ballot measure passes, solar proponents argue it would open up Florida’s solar energy market, which has largely stagnated for years. The measure would allow business or property owners to produce up to 2 megawatts of solar power and sell that power directly to others, such as tenants, without having to go through a utility.
Under state law, only utilities can sell electricity directly to consumers, though solar proponents argue that 36 states allow the practice. Only five states, including Florida, ban the practice.
Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party and a leader in the ballot initiative, said: “AFP frequently mentions the subsidies for solar, but fails to bring up the fact fossil fuel and nuclear have been very heavily subsidized since 1932 and still are. In addition, government created monopolies are subsidized both by the federal government and by captive utility customers.”
This trend in customer-owned, distributed power generation has the utility industry scrambling to adjust business models and grid operations across the United States, Europe and Australia. Electricity from rooftop solar systems is cheaper than local utility rates in 42 of the 50 largest cities in the United States, according to “Going Solar in America,” a report released in January by North Carolina State University’s College of Engineering.
“People in the industry say the utility grid is facing the biggest changes it has had since Thomas Edison,” said Jon Hawkins, manager of PNM’s advanced technology group.
Homes and businesses generating their own electricity threaten the centralized utility business model the way the Internet disrupted the music business and digital cameras shook up film companies. Unlike those industries, though, a disruption in the electric utility industry affects every customer on the grid, for better or worse.
While Bunting is a rarity — a city resident who chooses to live off the grid — she may simply have been ahead of her time, some experts say. New, improved and cheaper technology in solar panels, microturbines, small neighborhood grids and fuel cell batteries could ultimately entice more urban dwellers to cut their ties with centralized utility companies like PNM the way cellphone users have kissed landlines goodbye.
The arrival in New Mexico last week of SolarCity, a giant solar financing and installation company chaired by Tesla founder Elon Musk, is shades of things to come.
“The genie is out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in,” said Regina Wheeler, chief executive officer of the Santa Fe-based solar company Positive Energy.
Utilities in at least 13 states including Colorado, Arizona and Texas have completed studies looking at the financial impact on utilities from solar customers using their grids. The vast majority showed a net benefit to the utilities. The Maine Public Utilities Commission, for example, released a study last week that found the value of solar power produced in Maine was 18 cents per kilowatt-hour, but customers with rooftop solar panels only received a credit on their bill worth about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour. The study also found that over a 25 year term, solar could achieve a levelized benefit to Maine’s electric system of 33 cents per kilowatt-hour.
As of March 1, the average across all Maine investor owned utilities for net metering credit to solar customers is approximately 14 cents per kilowatt hour.
Other companies have decided solar customers need to pay more for using the grid.
When Arizona Public Service Company proposed a $50 to $100 monthly access fee for rooftop solar customers, “things got extremely ugly,” said Anne Jakin, a senior policy analyst with New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, which runs the state tax-credit program for solar customers.
After an outcry from the solar industry and homeowners who had installed solar panels, the Arizona Corporation Commission instead approved a monthly fee of 70 cents per kilowatt, an average of about $5 a month, for new installations.
The growing pains of a new industry. Make no mistake, though, solar is here to stay. The economics look too good now. Solar power is now cheaper than conventional energy as long as net metering is in place. Soon enough, net metering won’t be needed as homeowners can cost effectively go off the grid.