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Puerto Rico wants to tax people for Solar generation
- Thread starter MontyFloyd
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- puerto rico solar tax
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
That's silly. You may be thinking the two parties are the only choices. Yeah, in the US they mostly have a lock. But a third party can control who of those two wins, and so can have a lot of power. Was it Ross Perot who cost the Republicans the Presidency once? I think Ralph Nader did the same thing to the Democrats. I remember a Virginia legislature election came down to literally one vote, in one district, to determine who had the majority. A third party candidate could easily have controlled that result.
CrazyRabbit
Active Member
this is like taxing people for making a hamburger at home! buy 2 bucks of ingredients, make burger valued at 8 dollars at restaurant; thus taxing them on the added value. insane! what if I mow my own lawn! I'm surprised Oregon hasn't made it illegal to do your own yard work, like they did with pumping gas. socialisms at its best...
I have an idea, put a 200% tax on groceries. so people eat out more and create jobs. lead the way Oregon.
I have an idea, put a 200% tax on groceries. so people eat out more and create jobs. lead the way Oregon.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
I believe that Colorado has made it illegal to collect your own rainwater. (Good start)
No. But there are restrictions on volume and use.
However, it _was_ illegal, and the barrel rule was added in 2016:
Why Rain Barrels Are Now Legal In Colorado
Who owns rain that falls from the sky? In the West, this is a topic of serious discussion and lawmaking. This summer, after much debate, Colorado will allow homeowners to use rain barrels.
www.npr.org
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Water rights are a big thing.
So specifically, rainwater harvesting is intercepting the falling rain for your use.
When it hits the ground, then it's subject to water rights.
CrazyRabbit
Active Member
water wells will soon be illegal. i'm sure they are studying this. some in libs in Austin are trying to limit the water you can pull with a 5 hp pump and larger...
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Same for California. Until recently anyone could drill a well anywhere and draw as much water as they wanted. Farmers loved this since they could afford to drill big deep wells. Since this led, predictably, to a drastically lowered water table (primarily in the central valley), they are now formulating rules for groundwater after doing a statewide survey.
Of course, we should distinguish groundwater which is a common shared resource from sunlight which falls on each property freely and one person capturing the sun doesn't suck sunlight away from neighbors.
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mspohr
Well-Known Member
Utility Dive: Puerto Ricans have built the largest renewable peaker plant in the world. Let's use it.. Puerto Ricans have built the largest renewable peaker plant in the world. Let's use it.
Puerto Ricans have taken their energy resiliency into their own hands. Over 55,000 rooftop-solar powered batteries are already on Puerto Rican homes, a fleet that grows by around 2,000 every month. These families and small businesses are now individually protected during blackouts, but they could also help all other consumers via their stored energy.
We’re now at a pivotal moment, sitting on a massive virtual power plant, or VPP, an existing and growing network of solar powered storage units that can be dispatched in unison to share power when most needed, like at peak power demand hours. It’s a clean, island-wide, resilient power generator that could save thousands of lives and dollars while preventing blackouts small and large. And turning our VPP on as fast as possible is the policy mandated by the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, or PREB, the local regulator. All that’s left to do is to “flip the switch.”
It’s therefore puzzling how the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority simply drags its feet, despite PREB’s now over 16-month old order for PREPA to procure substantial solar plus storage VPP resources.
Puerto Ricans have taken their energy resiliency into their own hands. Over 55,000 rooftop-solar powered batteries are already on Puerto Rican homes, a fleet that grows by around 2,000 every month. These families and small businesses are now individually protected during blackouts, but they could also help all other consumers via their stored energy.
We’re now at a pivotal moment, sitting on a massive virtual power plant, or VPP, an existing and growing network of solar powered storage units that can be dispatched in unison to share power when most needed, like at peak power demand hours. It’s a clean, island-wide, resilient power generator that could save thousands of lives and dollars while preventing blackouts small and large. And turning our VPP on as fast as possible is the policy mandated by the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, or PREB, the local regulator. All that’s left to do is to “flip the switch.”
It’s therefore puzzling how the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority simply drags its feet, despite PREB’s now over 16-month old order for PREPA to procure substantial solar plus storage VPP resources.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
Buildings can shade other buildings and as far as I'm aware, this is not considered to be any sort of interference. So land ownership rights do not appear to extend to sunshine.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Actually, California has a "solar rights law" which prohibits you from shading your neighbors property and allows you to thin trees, etc. on another property which shade your solar panels.
Also in 1978, the state passed the California Solar Shade Act. Similar to Part 2 of the Solar Rights Act above, this law protects homeowner’s access to sunshine, protecting the solar panels from shading caused by trees or other growth on neighbors’ property.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
But not buildings? Maybe that will be justification for removing the Millennium Tower.
There are three things that stand out for me in this.Looks like it is a trend among utilities, to charge people for free power.
Puerto Rico legislator calls on US Congress to prevent an “illegal tax” on Puerto Rico solar
Puerto Rico legislator Héctor Ferrer called on Congress to use its oversight authority over Puerto Rico’s fiscal oversight board to oppose a proposed fee on rooftop solar power.pv-magazine-usa.com
First is that is appears to be a way to pay a $9 billion loan. Who should pay it, how and over what period?
Second is the attempt to include those who have no connection to the grid to the tax - and that, it appears, is why it is indeed being called a tax rather than a surcharge. But....irrespective of inherent fairness or not, this is not new or in any way unexpected. I recently learned that it is considered de rigeur for private residences that front streets upon which a distributed natural gas line is to be constructed will, regardless of whether they wish to or not to make use of such service, be presented with a bill - either for a mandatory hookup or for an increase in the property's Tax Valuation or both.
Third is the social service concept. Now, this will sound like socialism to some - it does to me - but within a society, to carve out from paying into a Community Fund, as it were, those who will not benefit from it because they are wealthy enough to not need a service (in the Puerto Rico case, it's those who have their own electric systems vs the less fortunate who have to use grid electricity) is a way to burden that latter with permanent payments that the more fortunate do not have to assume. I know this intimately because I was in such a situation: when the unregulated utility that provided electricity to our minuscule remote Alaskan community raised its rates from an ungodly $2.00/kWh to an utterly incredible $4.15 (Yes!!!!!), I told them to do something anatomically impossible and built my own solar+battery+diesel backup facility. That hastened the demise of operator and, as it failed, so burdened the rest of its customers. They departed - and now I live in a ghost town, inhabited solely by me, my wife and our son. For better or for worse.
This is an absolutely extreme case, yet its lesson should not be lost on those who have to make the decision in Point #1: HOW is that loan to be paid off?
mspohr
Well-Known Member
This loan was the result of a corrupt, incompetent PREPA. The people who bought these bonds made a bad investment and if it's not paid back, they should lose, not get a public bail out.
The RSA’s “solar tax-centric approach is illegal,” said Ferrer, quoting Section 3.4 of the Puerto Rico Energy Public Policy Act (Act 17-2019): “no direct or indirect charge shall be imposed on the generation of renewable energy by consumers.” Ferrer said the proposed RSA also “intrudes upon” the exclusive rate setting jurisdiction of Puerto Rico’s independent energy sector regulator, the Energy Bureau.
The $9 billion was wasted and there was no social service benefit to customers. They shouldn't have to pay. I am very much against socialism for corporate monopolies.
Considering the power generated also lights up streets and signal lights, and local facilities and amenities, I have no issue with a general tax.
But a tax on power you generated for your own use, that is ethically wrong.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
Puerto Rico is of Spanish heritage, while most of the US is of English background. Our laws are mostly inherited from the English system. So many things in Puerto Rico seem odd to us, but they all accept it.
In general, they seem to have a lot of complacency here. They treat many problems with the government as being inevitable. I stay in many places with issues in reliability of electricity and water. People have work arounds and just live with it.
gnuarm
Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
I have to say I was in San Juan the other day and found out there was a demonstration in the works to protest the poor performance of Luma. So maybe I've misjudged the level of complacency.
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