The Grinch Brothers – a.k.a. Charles and David Koch – have effectively stolen the sun. Why? So they can sell it back to you.
On Tuesday, Republican-controlled utility regulators (make that Koch-controlled utility regulators) of
Senator Harry Reid‘s
home state of Nevada dealt a lethal blow to rooftop solar power – the
latest skirmish of a nationwide green energy battle that has pitted the
Senate Democratic leader against his favorite target, the Koch brothers.
The move by Nevada’s utility regulator, which voted to slash the
economic incentives for homeowners to install solar panels, was most
immediately a showdown between billionaires Warren Buffett,
owner of the state’s largest power company, and
Elon Musk, whose
SolarCity
is the nation’s largest installer of panels that create electricity
from the sun. But it also served as a proxy fight in a national struggle
about states’ green energy programs, in which free-market groups backed
by industrialists Charles and David Koch have fought to roll back
incentives that they argue distort the marketplace and force some
customers to subsidize other people’s power choices.
The Kochs’ advocacy groups didn’t directly enter the fight in Nevada,
although they have campaigned in states such as neighboring Arizona to
cut back programs that allow solar-owning residents to sell their excess
power back to the electric grid. And Reid has singled out the Kochs’
opposition to solar incentives as part of his litany of complaints about
the billionaire brothers, whom he has accused of “trying to buy the
country” to promote their pro-fossil-fuel, anti-regulation agenda.
“The Koch brothers are worth more than 135 million Americans combined,” Reid told the
Las Vegas Sun in August. “Why are they interested in stopping rooftop solar? It hurts their bottom line.”
Reid had no immediate comment on Tuesday’s action by the
Nevada Public Utilities Commission,
but in the past he has been highly critical of the Koch brothers, with
none other than Cruz, R-Texas, accusing Reid of branding
them ‘The Grinch Brothers.’
“I’m beginning to think [the Koch brothers] are a character almost
out of Dr. Seuss in the majority leader’s mind, they are the grinch who
stole Christmas in his telling,” Cruz said last year.
The three-member Nevada utility panel, responding to a law signed
last spring by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, voted to slash the
payments that Buffett-owned
NV Energy
must pay to homeowners whose rooftop solar panels feed electricity into
the grid, and to hike the fees for homeowners to connect their panels
to the wider power system. Companies like SolarCity and rival
solar-leasing firm
Sunrun have said
the decision will most likely prompt them to stop operating in the
state, which is the nation’s fifth largest in solar power capacity.
Even more galling to solar advocates, the commission made the
decision retroactive — meaning the payments will stop and the fees will
rise even for homeowners who had installed their panels under the
previous program.
The
American Energy Alliance,
a Koch-funded group that opposes these kinds of “net metering”
programs, said Tuesday’s move “makes positive changes to protect all
ratepayers.”
“Folks who have rooftop solar tend to be wealthier homeowners, so you
have a situation where the poor and middle class are paying for the
wealthy to have solar power,” AEA spokesman Chris Warren said.
Solar companies like SolarCity and Sunrun have blossomed in recent
years by installing panels on homeowners’ roofs at no cost, and then
charging a monthly leasing fee that is typically lower than residents’
monthly utility bill. But those energy cost savings will disappear after
the state commission decided to cut the payment to homeowners by 75
percent, from the retail power price to the wholesale level. NV Energy
can also charge rooftop solar owners a fee for allowing them to sell
power to the grid.
Sunrun quickly
blasted
the Public Utility Commission, saying it “ignored months of public
input and over 30,000 public comments and voted in favor of solar fees.”
The company, which has filed a lawsuit against Sandoval to obtain
records about his interactions with NV Energy, said its industry group
The
Alliance for Solar Choice planned to file a lawsuit challenging Tuesday’s PUC action.
The Nevada utility commission’s decision does not affect large-scale
solar power plants that supply electricity to utilities, like the $1
billion
Crescent Dunes solar project partly financed by President Barack Obama’s stimulus program, and NV Energy is a major purchaser from them.
Earlier this month, Congress agreed as part of the omnibus budget
package to extend a federal tax credit for solar power to 2022, an
incentive the industry has said was crucial to keeping it on a path that
would make it economically viable without subsidies.
That federal victory for solar power comes as a rising number of
states try to adapt their energy policies to accommodate the rising
pressure from homeowners and greens – as well as libertarian groups like
Georgia’s
Green Tea movement – to foster more growth of rooftop solar.
Another fight is playing out in Florida where a group of tea-party,
environmental and solar advocates are seeking a ballot measure for 2016
that would prevent the state from regulating small solar installation.
Utilities there are pushing a rival ballot initiative that would keep in
place the current system that requires homeowners to sell power to the
utility.
The cost to install rooftop solar installations has dropped by half
in the past five years, and the rooftop companies had put panels on
nearly 800,000 homes and business across the country by mid-2015.
But the success of leasing business mode has prompted utilities to
push back against the net metering policies, which threaten to eat away
at their business growth while increasing their costs.
By the end of 2015, total
solar power capacity
in the United States is expected to be near 28,000 megawatts, or enough
to supply some 5.6 million homes. Still, even with the fast-paced
growth, solar power provides less than 2 percent of the electricity
consumed in the United States.
If the Grinch Brothers have their way, future growth of solar power
in the United States will depend on their ability to steal the sun and
sell it back to consumers – to sell it back to you.
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