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Arizona Commissioner Probes Utility's Secret Funding of Anti-Solar Campaign
mdsolar writes "An Arizona utility commissioner is asking for all the key players in a debate over a solar energy policy in the state to reveal any additional secret funding of nonprofits or public relations campaigns. The probe comes after Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility, admitted last week that it had been secretly contributing to outside nonprofits running negative ads against solar power. As The Huffington Post reported Friday, APS recently admitted that it had lied for months about paying the 60 Plus Association, a national conservative organization backed by the Koch brothers, to run ads against current solar net-metering policy. APS is currently pushing the Arizona Corporation Commission to roll back the policy, which allows homeowners and businesses with rooftop solar energy systems to make money by selling excess energy back to the grid. Solar proponents say that the policy has facilitated a solar boom in the state, and that changing it could have a huge negative impact on future growth."
It is a shame that the solar debate is guided so heavily by politics. It is a shame that APS cannot have a public discussion regarding the negative side of solar projects without being bashed by politicians and a list of anti-everything groups that have no accountability. It is shame that APS feels the need to quietly support the dissemination of this information through indirect channels, and not be forthright about it when questioned.
A key red flag in the article is the question of using 'ratepayer money'. That is a political ploy meant to inflame. The rate base is negotiated between the PUC and the utility based on a range of factors including cost of operation, capital needs and others. It also includes profit for the utility. There should be no restrictions on how the utility uses that profit. It is funny that nobody complains about money sources when APS finances an efficiency campaign. Let’s be honest, the outrage is simply the fact that the drawbacks of solar are being promulgated. Would these same politicians be outraged if this money went to a pro-solar entity? A climate exists where large utilities or other entities must publicly profess that solar is always wonderful or otherwise get labeled as money hungry evildoers.
Facts are facts. Solar is clean, diverse, expensive and unreliable. There is a fit for it in the mix. There is also a point where it causes problems for the grid that will require significant waste or expense to alleviate. Growth must be managed properly to get the maximum benefit. In most cases, we could reduce environmental impact much more per dollar by investing in energy efficiency rather than solar. Unfortunately, that approach does not produce a visible "green" trophy. Installing solar thermal water heaters would yield much better financial and environmental returns than solar PV.
Most residential solar units are installed by wealthier Americans who are taking advantage of huge tax incentives. Essentially, we are paying for much of their energy cost via our tax dollars. I find it amazing that some of the same folks who complain about the very wealthy are so willing to give them money in this manner.
Solar has a place in our energy mix. Solar also has its drawbacks, and its OK to talk about them. Or is it an outrage?
That's just the name of a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, not an actual Public Utility concern.
" ... and that changing it could have a huge negative impact on future growth."
But all these "renewable energy fools" are having a negative impact on APS's ability to enforce their monopoly and control the future of energy in the state.
Won't someone think of the utilities?
Yeah, let's run a smear campaign against not only one of the cleanest forms of energy available, but the source most plentiful and free in that particular state. A utility should be getting onboard, not trying to harpoon something that could benefit them.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
...all government funding and promotion for "green energy"? Especially since it seems to be almost entirely an exercise in crony capitalism and kickbacks for campaign donors.
Government shouldn't be picking winners and losers in energy.
Forcing utility companies to buy back energy will eventually bankrupt any electricity company. It forces all of the expenses of running their entire grid on a smaller and smaller pool of paying customers. Those customers would be businesses and the "renting" poor, and those unlucky enough not to be able to install solar. However, the electric grid as we know it should eventually become obsolete, as alternative energies such as solar take over. It will just be a complicated period of adjustment.
I suppose I'm not too surprised, but wow. All that is missing is a mustache twirling villain rubbing his hands together as he chuckles maniacally.
The Tea baggin' Koch Bros...
"The utility, the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), outed itself as a funder of two secretive nonprofits fueling the anti-solar fightâ"and revealed that it had funneled its anti-solar money through a political operative associated with the Koch brothers and their donor network."
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A government granted monopoly trying to keep it's power? How is that even possible?
Net-Metering doesn't make money for the property owner. The Net of the front of that means that at the end of the year if you generate excess power (vs what you used when the sun didn't shine) the balance is wiped to zero and the utility doesn't pay you a cent.
What this means is that solar panels generate power during peak usage when commercial power rates are the highest, the home owner typically buys power at night when rates are the lowest. The net-metering means the meter spins backwards during the day. If at the end of the year the meter is less than when the year started the balance is zeroed and they start over. If it's positive the homeowner cuts a check for the amount.
The debate is that as solar power use grows the people using with zero bills aren't paying any maintenance dollars to support upkeep of the grid. Right now power rates combine generation and grid maintenance costs in one per/kw number.
The counterpoint is that the number of people at zero is INCREDIBLY small because any excess capacity is handed to the power utility for nothing.
The reality is that as the number of people at or near zero increases, the system needs to adjust to separate power costs and grid maintenance. The solution the utility wants, is to end net-metering, the solution that should be implemented is a fixed line minimum grid maintenance fee (either monthly or yearly). It should be noted that the utility is mostly opposed to this because it would mean they would have to actually disclose what grid maintenance costs and what power costs. And of course the astro-turfed opposition is funded by the two largest private owners of hydrocarbon based energy in the US.
The Arizona net metering policy is already very protective of utilities' interests. http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=AZ24R&re=1&ee=0
System size can't be larger that 125% of a customer's normal use and customer/generators only get paid at the avoided cost rate, not the retail rate for power generated beyond their annual use.
In New Mexico, First Solar is selling power at 5.79 cents a kilowatt-hour http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/first-solar-may-sell-cheapest-solar-power-less-than-coal.html so it seems hard to believe that this campaign is anything but a way for the Koch brothers to shake down APS.
There's a similar campaign against wind power in general going on in Idaho. I've only really seen billboards with vague questions associating wind power projects so corruption and insider deals, but it is pretty obviously a political campaign to stir up ill will in the voting public.
As if the utilities never made any corrupt or insider deals.
The way public utilities were originally set up was intended to deal with a regulated structural monopoly and keep a fair balance between ratepayers and the "owners" of the infrastructure. Since laissez-faire capitalism has been the fashion for the last 30 years the utility commisions have been packed with insiders and had any regulatory teeth taken away. Thank you Saint Ronnie of Alzheim.
Net metering gets settled up annually in most places. In Arizona, excess generation is compensated at the avoided cost rate, however much getting that free electricity reduced costs for the utility. This can be less than the market wholesale rate. A supercapacitor or anything else does not help with what to do with an annual excess. It might make the grid irrelevant though.
My comment is regarding net metering in general not specifically as it applies to solar. This is a bigger issue; it's not just with solar that net metering comes into play. I know someone who has a factory and a hydroelectric plant. He sells the energy to the electric company and buys it back at a very small markup. "If you make extra power the electric company is bound by law to buy it." I see no reason to change this; its simply common sense and it applies to more than just solar. These rules have been around for longer than solar was a thing for private citizens and everyone wins. Use of smart meters is especially helpful in these scenarios since the grid is aware when extra power is being generated as well as when it's needed.
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
I use solar power at night. I have this marvelous invention called a "battery". You may have heard of them....
In Arizona the compensation is at the avoided cost rate, in Maryland it is confiscated, for example.
Utilities already have connection fees. Should they not just get the accounting right?
I agree with their and your point of view that everyone connected to the grid should pay a fixed amount for upkeep and maintenance, regardless of how much they use. If people don't like it, they can go off the grid.
And I can't even blame the company for spending money on spreading the word of that to the public. But why can't they set up a publicity campaign just publicize their point of view and put their name to it? After all ... it's a legitimate use of (semi) public funds to educate the population about skewed distribution of maintenance costs.
So why sneakily funnel money to some right-wing propaganda groups to say it for them? That sort of thing is dangerous. Because ... who audits the money spent in this way? Who decides and who authorizes the expense? And besides ... why did they deny it first?
Their statement was "counter-factual", to put it politely. And this phrase "I know what I told you before but that was my understanding at the time" does sound like a blanket cop-out for everyone who wants to lie or deceive, doesn't it? So: what else does that company fund they're not telling us about, eh?
In summary, I'm afraid the company left the straight and narrow of technical necessity and business commonsense and plunged straight into politics when they surreptitiously funded a political faction to say things on their behalf.
Agreed. Well said! The browns should stop being such puling cowards, and the greens should stop being so holier-than-thou. People who are uninformed can't get the real facts unless all ten sides of the argument are openly presented.
False statement. The outrage is principally over their lying, and their possible participation in one of the Koch brothers' anti-free-market conspiracies. Many people believe these men routinely use their enormous wealth to undermine the political, economic and security apparatus of the United States of America, and will be outraged by any secret scheme that involves the Koch borthers in any way. This is the cause of the outrage.
Yes. If not them, then some other politicians. See Solyndra etc. for oceans of outrage. You can hire politicians to be outraged over anything, and they will also be routinely outraged by anything their pollsters tell them will get them air time.
Partially true. Solar is the most reliable source of power we have. The sun is a fusion plant that operates without maintenance for billions of years. Solar panels require less maintenance investment and less maintenance downtime compared to any other mainstream technology, and have trivial decomissioning costs. The sun is shining somewhere nearly 24 hours a day, nearly 365 days a year, and both energy transmission and energy storage to meet baseload demand are solved problems despite many absurd claims to the contrary.
Completely and unequivocally true. Attempts to implement solar incorrectly will result in waste, and regardless of what technology is adopted increasing energy use means the grid requires expensive upgrades, and solar cannot prevent that. Efficiency is absolutely the highest payback investment, but existing industries (like the incandescent bulb industries) engage in unfair market manipulation and outright propaganda to divert people's focus away from that simple fact.
Half truth. There is no doubt that the majority of residential units are installed by upper middle class or wealthier Americans. The incentives, however, are miniscule compared to pretty much any other government handouts - such as, for example, the corporate welfare programs enjoyed by all other energy industries - and every single creature that breathes air benefits from residential solar installations, so it is not an inappropriate use of tax dollars... especially since the majority of the heavily taxe
Around here we saw a similar astroturf campaign agains wind power. Call in radio shows were full of irate "farmers" complaining against wind mills. I spent a week in the region talking to actual farmers and they were all in favor of wind mills. They average farmer here earns somewhere between $30K-100K of rental income from the windmill companies and they couldn't be more thrilled about it.
As soon as I hear that word, "secret", red flags go off in my mind. This is not nuclear missile codes or someone's private struggle with a disease. If you do indeed have a valid position on a public issue why all the cloak and dagger?
Or kill them.
Beheading in public is to good for them, Beheading them and their family is not punishment enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZOi-_sPF6s
like anything "for the masses" there needs to be some regulation. also for solar. there is this notion that the public grid cannot deal with the fluctuating power generation of solar panels. of course this can be simpley mitigated by requiring that personal solar generation facilities can only be 110% the size of the average 5 year period consumption of electricity. solar fits very nicely into any democracy. everybody gets the chance to "help out". what we dont need are massive solar farms that bring online mutiple mega watt just to then dissappear again when the sun goes down and again concentrate electricity generation into central locations and hands. the sun might shine a bit more further south, but transporting this southerly solarpower to another place where the sun also shines is utter crazyness.
Four of five members of the state’s energy regulator are tied to the conservative anti-clean energy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/01/2873071/arizona-solar-battle/