Monopolies Set To Kill Solar Energy in California
Electric utility monopolies like PG&E, SDG&E, and SoCal Edison have proposed new rules to the state consumer protection board (the CPUC) that creates a new tax on solar energy.
They argue that when solar energy customers zero out their electricity bill (which is not always even the case) they stop paying for grid maintenance.
This is a terrible argument, since literally no one directly pays for grid maintenance. These utilities have created a scheme, where customers’ usage charges on their electric bill (variable costs) end up covering the utilities’ fixed costs for grid maintenance. This scheme is collapsing, and the utilities are blaming solar energy.
More fair, would be to reorganize the utilities’ revenue structure to match their cost structure. Simply having fixed charges equal fixed costs would fix this — common sense solutions like that, would yield a lower rate for power for everyone, and a new fixed grid maintenance charge for everyone equal to half or more of the bill total. A change like this wouldn’t affect customers’ monthly expense total.
But monopolies are using their own financial idiosyncrasy as an opportunity to go into hulk-mode, and smash the entire solar industry with a new activist tax.
Where is the GOP cavalry when we need them to protect us against new taxes?
Here’s a petition to urge the CPUC not to kill the solar industry in California — please, no matter where you live, sign it because California is still a global leader for solar energy. If solar dies in California, people will say it can’t work anywhere.
Meanwhile, the Motley Fool stock advice website calls net energy metering a subsidy and recommends a short sell of solar stocks. Laughable, since net energy metering is not a subsidy at all, it’s actually a way that the monopolies don’t steal energy from homeowners that homeowners rightfully own.
