taphil
Member
Former governor has a very well written article/opinion piece in the NYT today.
Opinion | Schwarzenegger: We Put Solar Panels on 1 Million Roofs in California. That Win Is Now Under Threat.
Removing incentives to encourage homeowners to install solar panels is a bad idea.
www.nytimes.com
Opinion | Schwarzenegger: We Put Solar Panels on 1 Million Roofs in California. That Win Is Now Under Threat.
Removing incentives to encourage homeowners to install solar panels is a bad idea.
www.nytimes.com
Schwarzenegger: We Put Solar Panels on 1 Million Roofs in California. That Win Is Now Under Threat.
"When I was California’s governor, we set a goal in 2006 of putting solar panels on one million roofs across the state. Skeptics said it couldn’t be done, but with bipartisan support in the State Legislature, California met its goal in 2019..."The state now has 1.3 million solar rooftops generating roughly 10,000 megawatts of electricity — enough to power three million homes. And more are being added every week. Roughly two-thirds of those rooftops are on houses and businesses; the rest are on government buildings.
"But this hard-earned and vitally important accomplishment is now under threat. The California Public Utilities Commission is considering a plan that would make it too costly for many Californians to embrace solar power. A decision could come as soon as Jan. 27.
"The plan is complicated and has some good features, like creating funds to encourage homeowners and businesses with solar to add batteries for storage and to help bring solar power to poor and polluted communities.
"But it would also include a new monthly “grid participation charge” that would average an estimated $57 a month for solar customers. People who power their homes with fossil fuels wouldn’t pay this. So let’s call it what it is: a solar tax....
"California should do more to incentivize clean energy in lower-income areas. And the state should be promoting the installation of a million batteries to store the energy that the solar panels capture. That’s how we can truly democratize energy. But adding a tax and removing incentives will hurt the solar market, and making solar more expensive for everyone does nothing to help our most vulnerable....
"California has been hit hard in recent years by the changing climate, with record droughts and catastrophic wildfires. That’s another reason this proposal makes no sense; we should be pulling out all the stops to slow global warming. California is already so far behind on meeting its 2030 climate goals that the state isn’t projected to hit them until 2063. And our 2050 goals? We are on track to reach them by 2111....
"This is just another case of the big guys — the investor-owned utilities — fighting for themselves and hurting people who have invested or want to invest in solar panels...
"Incentives matter when creating a new energy infrastructure. In Nevada, for instance, the state’s rooftop solar adoption rate plummeted 47 percent in the year after the state’s public utilities commission made solar more expensive for consumers by adding higher fixed costs on net-metering customers and reducing the price paid to customers for the excess energy they generate. A public outcry compelled the Nevada Legislature to reverse the changes, and more people started putting solar panels on their rooftops again. It’s common sense.
"In areas of California outside the utility commission’s control, we have already seen what happens when policies ratchet up rooftop solar costs. When the Imperial Irrigation District in Imperial Valley abandoned net metering in July 2016, residential solar installations declined 88 percent over the next two years as measured by added megawatts. The Turlock Irrigation District ended net metering at the beginning of 2015; within two years, annual residential solar installations declined 74 percent. Sacramento, sadly, is about to see this happen too."