SCE Wants to Own the Sun

By Larry Hogue | Posted on May 1, 2009

When those of us who think the desert is worth something speak out against destructive, poorly placed solar power projects, we’re called NIMBYs, BANANAs, obstructionists, climate change deniers, or worse. But when Southern California Edison blocks the best initiative available to put lots of photovoltaic (PV) solar power on our cities’ rooftops and parking lots, that’s just business as usual.

SCE lobbying has apparently killed California’s Assembly Bill 432, which would have instituted a pilot solar “Feed-in Tariff” program for Palm Desert, CA. SCE argued that California already has a Feed-in Tariff (FiT), even though it applies only to large producers and pays only 8 cents per kilowatt/hour. Thus the company ensures that average citizens and small businesses can’t make a profit while doing good for the environment. At the same time, SCE is cornering the PV solar market for itself and other large corporations with its much-lauded commercial rooftop solar project, and is ensuring corporate dominance of concentrating solar power by issuing contracts with large-scale solar companies like the Chevron-backed BrightSource Energy.

What’s a Feed-in Tariff? Also called Renewable Energy Payments, or “excess solar payments,” a FiT requires utilities to pay grid-tied solar generators a profitable rate for the excess power they produce. That means homeowners or businesses will have a much higher incentive to install solar on their rooftops or parking structures than they currently do. Right now, that excess power goes to the utility for free. (The California Solar Initiative also requires solar installations to be sized to avoid excess power production, itself a disincentive to getting the most solar power possible.)

It’s clear why utilities like getting free power from their solarized ratepayers, but the value of Feed-in Tariffs in boosting solar installations has been well proven in countries like Germany, where they install 1500 megawatts of photovoltaic solar power each year. In comparison, California installed a tenth of that amount last year. For more on Feed-in Tariffs, see this post on DesertBlog and a good article from the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy.

Let’s hope the bill will be revived for the 2010 legislative season. Calls to your State Assembly and Senate members right now registering your displeasure with SCE’s lobbying could help to get the bill reintroduced. Need to find out who represents you in the Assembly and Senate? Go here.