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Thu Nov 14, 2013 at 10:03 AM PST

Koch, ALEC and giant utility company about to derail Arizona's private solar industry

by Mother MagsFollow

 

 

attribution: None Specified

 

It only makes sense, unless it jeopardizes your monopoly.

 

Arizona, much of which receives more than 300 days a year of sunshine, should be the poster child for a thriving solar industry. Today, the state is the second fastest growing when it comes to solar:

 

more than 500 homes a month add a rooftop photovoltaic unit, and the industry employs around 10,000 people statewide. It's been an ongoing struggle for solar power, since developers, competing energy suppliers and elected officials keep erecting obstacles. Until recently, for example, some homeowners associations and municipalities outlawed rooftop models, arguing that the solar panels disturb the homogenous horizons of red-tile roofs.

 

Once upon a time, solar cells were too expensive and ineffective, compared to conventional energy sources, and that in itself was a major obstacle. But as technology improved and cost became less of a deterrent, giant utility companies often worked with their political toadies to erect new roadblocks. Another one is about to be enacted into law, perhaps today, in part courtesy of the Koch brothers and our old friends at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). And what's about to go down in Arizona today has national implications, since the issue that's being debated, "net metering," is vital to the success of the solar industry in at least 42 other states.

Simply put, net metering is an odd term that means solar customers, who may collect more energy than they use, can sell excess energy to the local utility company over the power grid. Here in Phoenix that usually means you're selling power to Arizona Public Service (APS), which, like many electric companies, has a virtual monopoly in the region unless you opt for solar or another alternative model.
As the price and efficiency of solar units has become more competitive, net metering has quietly emerged as another major incentive to go solar. So it comes as no surprise that APS and other utility companies have created a two-pronged attack on the solar industry—first by reducing the subsides they provided early on to encourage homeowners to install solar. According to the Arizona Republic:

APS paid customers rebates totaling as much as $21,000 for a 7-kilowatt solar array in 2008, or $3 a watt. That was reduced to 10 cents a watt, or $700 for the same system, this year, and eventually reduced to zero, reflecting the falling cost of solar panels.

But reducing the installation subsidy hasn't killed the solar industry; it's only continued to grow to the tune of a 76 percent growth rate nationally in the last year alone, and so now APS wants to make net metering prohibitively expensive by charging solar customers up to $100 a month to use the grid to sell energy. If you live in the Phoenix area, you haven't been able to turn on a TV recently and not see one of these ads, which blabber on about "corporate welfare" while linking Arizona's burgeoning private solar industry to Solyndra, the rightwing's whipping boy for alternative energy.

 

Yesterday at the Arizona Corporation Commission offices in Phoenix the campaign came to a head, when more than 1,000 people turned out for the first day of hearings about net metering. The hearing continues today, with a decision expected. According to Reuters, challenges to net metering have emerged elsewhere, but Arizona is the first state where the rebate may be rolled back. And if it happens here ...

Jason Rose, a veteran Republican consultant working for the solar industry, told The Washington Post, “If the utilities are able to upend rooftop solar in Arizona, the sunniest state, then imagine what they can do everywhere else.”

Most of the more than 100 people who testified Wednesday spoke against APS's request that solar customers pay an additional $50 to $100 a month for the privilege of using the power grid. They included not only customers who will see their monthly bills skyrocket, but also many industry workers, whose jobs will be jeopardized. Well-known Arizonans, like Barry Goldwater, Jr., also spoke against the measure.

 

For its part, APS trotted out their lobbyists and some unlikely figures, like SB 1070 author and recalled senator Russell Pearce, who prattled on about the free market, suggesting that solar customers are interrupting the invisible hand by opting out. As former Corporation Commissioner Renz Jennings pointed out, however, energy is anything but a free market: it's highly regulated for one thing, and APS has a near monopoly!

 

Pearce and the industry's cronies regularly returned to the argument that's central to their TV ads: someone else is benefitting and you are paying for it! Never mind that the power grid is already in place, that more solar means less infrastructure, or that APS is collecting the solar energy and selling it to other homeowners, thus earning a profit. Solar proponents argue that not only shouldn't they pay more, they should receive a rebate:

The solar industry has balked at the APS plan, arguing that solar customers save the utility the cost of new infrastructure and, if anything, should be compensated more for the surplus electricity they send to the grid.

APS's happy comments about solar notwithstanding, the fact is every customer who abandons them for the sun is a net loss to the giant utility company's bottom line, so they've produced and aired a handful of million-dollar slick ads, trying to convince conventional energy homeowners that solar customers are ripping them off. APS says the average customer pays $17 a year to subsidize their solar neighbors. For me and many others, that's a small price to pay for the benefits of solar power; I and the planet benefit regardless of whether I use it or not, and I'll gladly pay $17 to encourage more solar.

 

Theirs is a typical tea party ploy, similar to the attacks on healthcare or food stamps, pitting one part of society against another, so you won't be surprised to learn who's part of APS's $3.7 million lobbying campaign. Early on, APS said with a straight face that they were not funding or running the TV ads, pointing out that they were produced by a nonprofit organization called 60 Plus. But reporters kept digging and eventually APS came clean, even though their spokesperson said they "had no intention of telling a lie to anybody." But that's what you fucking did!

 

And just who is 60 Plus? Turns out, says Mother Jones, in addition to APS funding they're another not-so-transparent shell for the Koch brothers to funnel money to.

The 60 Plus Association, a Virginia-based nonprofit, has received money from the Koch brothers' donor network.... What's more, APS told the [Arizona] Republic that it had given that money through Sean Noble, a political consultant described in a recent Huffington Post story as "the wizard behind the screen" for the Koch donor network's activities in 2012.

It's no scret why the Koch oil boys might want to pull the plug on solar, but let's not forget ALEC's role too. Nearly two years ago, when ALEC's reputation came under fire because of their support for some smarmy laws, major corporations like Coke and Walmart let their memberships lapse. Arizona Public Service joined that bandwagon and abandoned ALEC too in April 2012, with great public fanfare, only to quietly rejoin this year. They paid the $7,000 membership fee plus another $3,000 to have a seat on the energy committee, which, natch, is comprised of oil and gas companies whose model legislation ignores climate change, enables the coal industry, advances fracking, and of course undermines alternative energy, especially solar.

 

Given Arizona politics, and the makeup of the state's Corporation Commission, where 4 of the 5 regulators have ties to ALEC, it appears that the solar industry is about to experience another set-back. We'll find out today, but for now:

Regulators appear poised to charge new solar customers $7 to $50 more a month despite a show of force Wednesday from the rooftop-panel industry and solar customers at the Arizona Corporation Commission...Four of the five regulators have indicated through written proposals that they support adding fees to Arizona Public Service Co. solar users, although the fees they suggest are not as high as those sought by the utility.

 

 

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/14/1255524/-Koch-ALEC-giant-utility-company-about-to-derail-Arizona-s-solar-industry?detail=facebook#