The Tucson City Council is expected to vote Wednesday on a resolution that opposes plans by Tucson Electric Power to do away with the state’s metering rules for solar energy—something that tells the utility company to buy back, at full retail price, any excess energy that a solar customer did not use.
TEP filed a request with the Arizona Corporation Commission in March 2015, arguing the changes would make monthly rates more equal for all residential customers—most solar rooftops are connected to the communal electrical grid, and TEP argues rooftop solar customers are not paying their share for maintaining the grid and other services.
Current net metering rates were established by the Corporation Commission back in 2008. On average, a rooftop solar customer gets back around $100 back a month. With TEP’s net metering reduction proposal, that would go down to about $80, according to TEP. But Dan Millis with the Sierra Club’s Tucson Chapter told me last year that the buy-back figure would be cut by half.
The proposal is also backed by Arizona Public Service and UniSource Energy Services, according to a Sierra Club press release.
The environmental advocacy group has argued that changing the net metering rules means one of the main incentives that push people to go solar would disappear. Without the metering, “you don’t get credit for the surplus energy you produced,” Millis told the Weekly in March 2015. If the proposal to lower that buy-back rate solidifies, getting panels will not be as good a deal in people’s minds.
Millis said at the time that the solar industry’s approximately $34 million in net benefit to Arizona Public Service electricity customers alone should outweigh the difference in rates. Not to mention all the job it has generated statewide.
The changes, which are still pending with the ACC, would not affect customers who got solar before June 1, 2015.
The City Council resolution says that if the net metering changes are approved they “may negatively impact the city through an increase in the city’s energy costs, and reduce the city’s ability to offset those costs by installing distributed solar systems. While city tax revenues will increase under TEP proposal, the net impact of the proposal to the city remains unknown.”
Also, reducing economic incentives for solar system installations will have a negative impact on efforts to promote clean energy to reduce carbon emissions. It would also affect local solar installation jobs, the resolution says.
Read the entire resolution:
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2016.
This idea is right up there with Tucson Water asking people to cut back on water use and then turning around and asking for a rate hike because people were not using as much water as they used to. Nowadays, any time a corporation says it is doing something for the good of the people or fairness, you should hold onto your wallet because the only thing corporation do is increase their bottom line and appeal to investors at the expense of everything else. This does provide an opportunity for one thing though – watch how the politicians vote on such a proposal and you will see who is working for the public and who is working for the corporations because you can’t do both no matter what they say.
The solar people are getting a free ride. TEP used the mark up from the power they sell to maintain and improve the grid. Those wires are not free folks.
Can you imagine going to a car dealer and demanding they give you full retail value on your car? That is exactly what is being added of TEP. It is not readonable.
When my solar system generates more electricity than I need it gets fed back into the grid and I get a CREDIT for that electricity. Then during the winter and summer months when I draw more electricity than I produce, I use up those credits and pay for electricity like everyone else. Four months a year I pay just the base charge ($11.50) and the other eight months, the system simply reduces my consumption. I am not getting a “free ride”, I pay for those wires the rest of the year when I am not self-sufficient. Considering that 4 months of the year, TEP doesn’t have to burn coal or gas to provide me with electricity, is a win-win. It’s not like I am making any money from TEP, I’m just trying to do my part by keeping my demand on the grid down.
No matter what anyone says, the solar companies are making most of the money, sellig panels to residents. If everyone went solar, TEP couldn’t afford to operate in the plus column for it’s stockholders, and that’s what makes the company worth investing in. On the other side, when linemen are making 100K plus a year with OT, something should be done to lower TEP’s costs.
Oh, do tell,how much should a lineman make a year? Do you think you have what it takes to do the work a linemen does?
But let’s talk about the cost of power, how cheap it is. Let’s say your power bill is $300 a month, which is about twice the total of a typical power bill in the TEP service area. A $300 a month bill equals about S10 A DAY OR ABOUT ,41 CENTS PER HOUR, to run you lights, AC, refrigerator your TV your video games charge your phone, heck maybe to charge your car…. the pool pump, and all the other things we use power for in the home. ,41 cents an hour!… or about $10 bucks a day.. or slightly more than what people will spend for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or an order of fast food. And that number is IF your power bill is $300 a month on average in Tucson it is close to $150 a month or less. Or, for the math challenged $5 a day or less.
Now let’s talk about what solar is really doing, really costing. Solar panels, used ones are considered hazardous waste. The chemicals in products used in making solar panels are far far from harmleds as far as damage to the environment. Most solar panels are made in China, which is not the standard bearer of environmentally friendly Manufacturing. Let’s talk about the jobs are being destroyed in the power industry because of solar. It’s just not the people that are working for the utilities, it’s the people that mine the coal, that run the trains, the people that supply the gas and supply the materials to run the power plants. It is the people and cpmpanies that support the powerplants that are also getting wioed out. Hundreds of thousands of well-paid middle class jobs are being destroyed so people can save a few cents, a few dollars a month on their electric bill. Oh, and then there is the lost tax Revenue…
For the people that complain about tep wanting to recover more of the costs associated with people running solar. Hmmm, more more states are wanting to charge people by the mile driven because I can no longer collect enough gas tax revenue because of car is becoming more efficient so why is it fair for the government to penalize people for driving more gas efficient cars because they’re losing tax revenue but it’s not reasonible for TEP and other utilities to say, hey we’re losing money so other people can use the infrastructure that is being paid for by the people buying our product. The people getting the subsidize solar panels are already getting a free ride, should it go on indefinitely? It’s not enough that the government and the taxpayers is subsidizing them having solar panels, TEP need to do such as well? Why is that? TEP is a business, they have a right to make a profit, they have a right to recoup for their losses and costs.
Oh, then let’s talk about real costs of solar power, the industry is only viable because of tax breaks and government subsidies, which is not what I’d call a fair or a good business model. People want solar? I’m all for it. But they should be forced to pay full cost for the panels and the full cost for connecting to the grid that everybody else is having to pay for.
I am not anti-solar There Are places solar is the best solution. I’m all for electric vehicles. I think there should be charging stations. I think there should be interchangeable battery packs. Getting a recharge for your car should be as simple as putting fuel in your car, but instead of gasoline, a battery pack is swapped out. I do think solar should pay its own way. Just like every other industry does.
In the case of the power companies here in Arizona, they are being mandated by the ACC to help people not use their product. Name me one other business that is forced to do such. We don’t demand that the car companies help people find ways not to use their cars, it is not mandated that airlines are forced to find ways for people not to fly. And as I said before, no one thinks it’s reasonable to ask a car dealer to take back a used caras a trafe im at full retail price. No we all understand that the dealer pays a wholesale price so they can recondition the car and then sell it for a profit because companies that don’t make profit don’t survive, and companies that don’t survive do not keep people employed.
Just because TEP hasn’t updated any of its systems unless damaged in a monsoon, doesn’t mean we should foot the bill now. None of our infrastructures has been updated. Very bad roads, no water pressure, no more dumps and failing grids and sewer pipes. They rested on their laurels and profits for a vey long time. The oil and coal industries have been subsidized. So should we subsidize solar. The amount of roof top solar surface is staggering. Comparing solar waste to oil and coal is ridiculous. Subsidizing battery research and storage is more important. We have massive amounts of energy poured on us in Arizona daily. We need to use this energy and stop ripping up the earth.
TEP is part of a larger system called the Western Interconnect which stretches from Mexico to Canada and has a peak demand at 7 pm in August. Know how much Arizona solar is available to meet that peak demand at 7 pm? Zero. tucson solar power is worthless for helping to reduce peak demand on the generation plants, the transmission lines and the distribution lines of the TEP system.
Based on $26 per ton of coal, $2.84 per cubic foot of natural gas and $28 per pound of uranium, solar energy has a value of somewhere between $10 and $20 megawatthour. When you force TEP to pay $130 for something that is worth $20, the loser is the commercial customer who is always left holding the bag. The liberal democrats who run Tucson just can’t create jobs outside of the government sector because they have come up with endless schemes for parasiting on the small businessman. Solar power is just the latest scheme. Small businesses in Tucson just can’t compete because they are overloaded with city taxes, extra school taxes and now this scheme.
This discussion doesn’t even take into account the poor quality of solar power. Just look at all the problems it has caused Europe. High end operations that demand perfect quality and perfect reliability in their power supply are no longer even considering continental Europe as a base of operation. Solar power is like putting sewage into a water system. Don’t worry, the chlorine will take care of it.
Yeah huppent. And what’s your plan for global warming? Keep pedaling that BS about solar. Yes there are issues with solar but they are solvable and like it or not we have to switch off fossil fuels or we will, among other things, run out of water.
It’s well documented the power companies got together in Colorado last year to make a plan to kill solar because they’re afraid they’ll be put out of business. APS is leading the charge, but TEP was there too and they’re implementing the plan as well. Their goal is to kill renewable energy to preserve profits.
What was the decision on this one?
bslap, solar is going to put power companies out of business? Not likely, they are regulated utilities required to meet the peak demands of customers. The data, the facts, the science show that solar is completely unable to meet or reduce any of the peak demand on the generation plants, on the transmission lines or on the distribution system. So, not only is solar not going to put the utilities out of business, they aren’t going to have any impact on the business at all from a physical standpoint. The utilities will continue to have just as much megawatts of power supply, transmission lines and transformers and distribution lines and transformers.
What will change is that the states such as Arizona who have bought into solar whole hog will become decidedly less economically competitive on a national and international stage.