In the latest chapter of the “Rentseekers” of Big Energy stifling growth in the disruptive rooftop solar industry, consider for a moment the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), which is trying to change the rules on rooftop solar customers in the middle of the game.

Since 2009, thousands of LADWP’s customers have signed lease agreements with third-party providers and had systems installed. These contracts were approved by DWP. Now, LADWP is trying to force hundreds of the city’s most recent solar customers to re-sign their contracts, attempting to force solar companies to insert amended language even though the utility acknowledges they had approved the contracts on no less than three separate occasions.

On precisely none of those occasions did their reviewers catch what they suddenly perceive to be language that may in fact violate their own standards for contract language.

By slowing the progress of solar energy and creating such a difficult consumer and business experience, LADWP is acting in direct contrast to the city’s goals for solar growth. Regardless, without re-signed contracts, LADWP says it will not allow these customers to interconnect their solar systems to the grid. This prevents them from accessing the benefits of local, clean power, and from lowering their electricity bills.  

The re-signing process has been extremely confusing and off-putting, especially for those who already have systems built on their rooftops. It, once again, puts the rooftop solar industry – a major source of job growth – at odds with the municipal utility. (See previous criticisms of LADWP, their delays, and inefficiencies here.)

Solar companies and constituents are in the process of contacting L.A. council offices, so there is hope that a policy fix is be on the way. Moreover, Mayor Garcetti has made his plans for increased distributed generation in L.A. clear. After all, the City did approve the original contracts that solar companies have used.

Meanwhile, interconnection is on hold for hundreds of families. Consumers are trying to do the right thing, and solar companies and customers have complied throughout the process, yet the utility is forcing everyone to jump through hoops despite approving the original course.

Let’s hope L.A. moves forward and changes the course.  

You might assume that the solar energy industry represents one united group, working together in harmony towards a renewable energy future.  It’s a beautiful thought, but evidently this is not the case.  Within the solar industry there is conflict arising between rooftop solar and large scale solar developers — namely First Solar — which sees rooftop as a threat to its future success.

James Hughes, the CEO of First Solar, a solar panel manufacturer and PV power plant developer based in Tempe Arizona, has come out publicly against net metering.  Despite the fact that studies show distributed solar provides $34 million in annual benefits to all Arizona Public Service ratepayers, Hughes makes false claims that net metering is a subsidy “funded by all other utility customers who must pay proportionately more in rates.”  He uses false information to make a direct attack on his own industry.

You might ask why First Solar has such strong opposition to the success of rooftop solar.  The answer to that question can be found in the company’s 2012 Annual Report, in which it identifies rooftop solar as an obstacle that is likely to get in the way of the execution of its Long-Term Strategic Plan.  The rooftop solar market is not part of First Solar’s business strategy, and the company admits that it will “have a material adverse effect on our business.”

You might assume that the solar energy industry represents one united group, working together in harmony towards a renewable energy future.  It’s a beautiful thought, but evidently this is not the case.  Within the solar industry there is conflict arising between rooftop solar and large scale solar developers — namely First Solar — which sees rooftop as a threat to its future success.

James Hughes, the CEO of First Solar, a solar panel manufacturer and PV power plant developer based in Tempe Arizona, has come out publicly against net metering.  Despite the fact that studies show distributed solar provides $34 million in annual benefits to all Arizona Public Service ratepayers, Hughes makes false claims that net metering is a subsidy “funded by all other utility customers who must pay proportionately more in rates.”  He uses false information to make a direct attack on his own industry.

You might ask why First Solar has such strong opposition to the success of rooftop solar.  The answer to that question can be found in the company’s 2012 Annual Report, in which it identifies rooftop solar as an obstacle that is likely to get in the way of the execution of its Long-Term Strategic Plan.  The rooftop solar market is not part of First Solar’s business strategy, and the company admits that it will “have a material adverse effect on our business.”

In order to protect itself from the perceived threat of rooftop solar, First Solar is filing comments against net metering in states like Arizona and Nevada where a significant portion of its large-scale project portfolio is located, and where the preservation of net metering policies is up for evaluation.  Nevada is the site of two of the company’s large scale projects, which means the utility in that state is a major customer for First Solar. Comments filed in Nevada by First Solar advocate for thwarting the growth of their own industry by attacking residential solar.  Similarly, First Solar filed comments with the Arizona Corporation Commission on September 18, 2013, in which it claims that the spike in rooftop PV growth has led to a financial burden on ratepayers and utilities.  As I mentioned above, studies show this is not true at all.

Rooftop solar’s popularity among ratepayers and utilities does not come exclusively from the fact that it is a renewable source of energy.  In addition to societal benefits, it is also a form of distributed generation – which means that it is energy produced close to where it is used. In areas where the grid is constrained and electricity demand is on the rise, utilities have the potential to save millions by avoiding the costs of paying for new power lines and purchasing more electricity. Utility scale solar just cannot compete with that.

Dave Johnson Speak Out California

dday, writing in Giving Away The Tax Argument at Digby’s Hullabaloo blog, asks why so many California newspapers have “tax increase calculators” but no calculators that show people how much the budget cuts affect them.

In my life, I have never seen a “spending cut calculator,” where someone could plug in, say, how many school-age children they have, or how many roads they take to work, or how many police officers and firefighters serve their community, or what social services they or their families rely on, and discover how much they stand to lose in THAT equation. Tax calculators show bias toward the gated community screamers on the right who see their money being “taken away” for nothing. A spending cut calculator would actually show the impact to a much larger cross-section of society, putting far more people at risk than a below 1% hit to their bottom line.

[. . . The media already highlights the tax side of the equation over spending, dramatically portraying tax increases while relegating spending cuts to paragraph 27. It feeds the tax revolt and distorts the debate. And it’s completely irresponsible.

In Why Are Public Assets Being Cut Right When We Need Them Most?  Jay Walljasper, of OnTheCommons.org wonders why public transit, libraries and other things the government does for us are all being cut at exactly the time people need them?  As the economy turns downward more people need to take the train or bus, or use the library.  Jay makes the connection,

Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, one of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, proposes closing the state’s budget gap by reducing corporate taxes and slashing state aid to local governments. This will mean painful cuts in public assets, such as transit and libraries.

. . . This loss of our public assets is an alarming threat to our society. The things we all own in common and depend upon–libraries, transit, parks, water systems, schools, public safety, infrastructure, cultural programs, social services–are being gradually but steadily undermined.

For many years I have been blogging at Seeing the Forest, often coming back to a question, “Who is our economy for?”  For some time now regular incomes have stagnated, while incomes at the very top just go up and up.  The GDP keeps rising, productivity keeps going up, but regular people see less and less of the benefit of this increase.  In fact, if you look at charts and data, the stagnation of incomes started almost exactly at the same time as President Reagan took office and started implementing the corporate agenda of anti-tax and anti-government policies.  So is this a coincidence?

Throughout human history we have seen one scheme after another wherein a few people seize power and devise a system to hold it and use it to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.  This is human nature and through history we have seen it happen over and over.

America formed in reaction to the British monarchy’s exploitation of its people.  We, the People formed our government to band together and protect each other from attempts by the powerful few to exploit us.  Our Constitution was supposed to be include a system of checks and balances to account for the nature of power.

It is time for the people to take back that power and use it to again benefit each other.  And it is time for California’s newspapers to do something for We, the People and include a “budget cuts calculator” as well as tax increase calculator.  It is just as important, maybe more so, that we all understand how we’re injuring and jeopardizing our future with the budget cuts the Republicans required in this year’s budget negotiations.

Click through to Speak Out California

In a response to my post about the DWR’s Hetch Hetchy  report, sasha from Left in S.F. challenged the power replacement aspects of the restoration.

That’s all true as far as it goes, but as I’ve written before, the price tag of restoring Hetch Hetchy is better calculated in new asthma and lung cancer cases. Hetch Hetchy provides something like 20% of San Francisco’s electricity. If the dam were torn down, that power capacity would have to be replaced.

That power will almost certainly end up being replaced by gas-fired power plants, and those plants will be located in poor communities of color, because that’s where they put power plants. As long as advocates ignore the direct effect of the Hetch hetchy teardown, which will be more children tied to their asthma inhaler, more seniors unable to breathe, and more people in neighborhood clinics with shortness of breath, they are only confirming the worst stereotypes of the environmental movement, where environmentalists care more about trees than about people. 

Yes, the power would need to be replaced, but we need more power generation regardless of whether HH is dammed up or not. 

The E.D. report, however, has provided an analysis of where our power comes from and how Hetch Hetchy affects our power generation.  To be precise, the HH system provides only “0.6 percent of California’s electricity supply and represented 5.5 percent of statewide hydropower production. Also, only the Moccasin and Kirkwood plants actually generate power using water stored behind O’Shaughnessy Dam.”

Follow me to the flip…

And we must consider also where the bulk of HH power really goes: into pumping water.  Pumping water is the state’s single largest use of power.  If the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation District’s begin to make more substantive efforts toward conservation, much of the power loss can be made up throug small holding dams to increase hydropower generation along the Tuolomne.

The E.D. report also suggests other conservation measures including dynamic pricing for large energy consumers (ie industrial users) and local micro-conservation efforts. 

But more directly to your charge that we will have to build more gas-fired plants, well, that’s not necessarily true.  First of all, there were some members of the Assembly (Tim Leslie, a right-winger Rep, amongst others) who suggested trading off new dams for the restoration of the HH Valley.  While I’m not convinced this is the greatest idea, it is a reasonable consideration.  If we so desired, there are places on the rivers from the Sierra that we could build new dams.  Of course, there is plenty of environmental damage from dams as well.  Fish are unable to spawn properly and we could end up severely damaging our salmon population.  I think we’ve seen how perilous the salmon situation is already with the tight restrictions this season, building more dams would only accentuate that.

But as I said a few days ago on Calitics when we set a record for power consumption (which has likely been broken or will be broken today), we need more power generation facilities, specifically more alternative power generation facilities, with or without Hetch Hetchy.  I suggested requiring solar panels on all new construction, but I don’t think that’s the only option.  California has at least two resources in abundance, wind and sun, both of which are largely untapped.  And news that Vermont is now looking to produce energy from methane from cow manure offers another promise of new energy sources.  And of course, we could consider nuclear power productionm but the question of where we dump our spent fuel might hold that one back a while.

So, I think the accusation of environmentalists caring more about trees than people rings pretty hollow.  It’s not environmentalists that are pushing gas-fired plants on the world.  Environmentalists are working to decrease emissions and decrease the effects of global warming.  Heck, E.D. has other campaigns, Fight Global Warming and Clean Air for Life, running concurrently with their Restore Hetch Hetchy campaign. I think pointing fingers at E.D. and its partners is the wrong place to start.  If LA can save Mono Lake, why is it now so absurd to start talking about restoring Hetch Hetchy.  Look, I agree with the fact that we need to ensure secure water and power replacements, but that is not sufficient to kill the debate.

E.D. is working harder than anybody out there to clean up the air.  It’s a little disconcerting to see people on the left attacking them when it’s inconvienent for us.  I love the fact that we have HH and its resources, but if LA can save Mono Lake, why can’t we work to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley?