How Republican-led states are rigging energy markets

[UCmeNdc]

The GOP is killing off the Solar energy challenger companies.

So why did the sunny state of Nevada’s booming solar industry suddenly cave in?

The state’s Public Utilities Commission decided to allow NV Energy, a utility company, to raise rates on households that installed rooftop solar panels, and to cut the rates they paid for the solar energy those households sell back to the company to below-market prices. In effect, solar customers will now have to pay for the privilege of contributing to the electricity supply.

The decision was even made retroactive. Not only would new solar customers pay more, so would those who had already invested in rooftop energy. As per this decision, they will have assumed all of the risk of investing in renewable energy, while NV Energy will reap all of the benefits.

For retirees like Judy Treichel, who adopted solar to cut down on living costs to accommodate a fixed income, their wealth has effectively been expropriated by the state.

Nevadans are furious.

http://americablog.com/2016/01/how-republican-led-states-are-rigging-energy-markets.html

[louis-t]

1. I wonder how long repugs can continue pissing off

their constituents?

[Hortensis]

3. I've wondered that for 40 years. Conservatives

seem to make naturally good victims for political plucking. Their intrinsic comfort with inequality and the authoritarian streak in many make them interpret being screwed as an appropriate and even comforting working out of a "natural order" -- as long as they approve the screwers.

[HDSam]

2. I was...

surprised reading Governor Sandoval's press release asking solar companies to not lay off workers until the Public Utilities Commission decision was finalized.

The release was written in a way that clearly blamed solar companies, tossing them under the bus for laying employees off. I guess he wanted companies like Solar City to continue writing contracts and performing installs even though Nevadans saw the writing on the wall and knew current solar customers were in the process of getting screwed?

What was absent in the release was any real mention of the role Warren Buffett, NVEnergy or the Public Utilities Commission played in making solar power untenable in the state.

What's funny is the rationalization by the PUC and many conservatives that solar customers were being subsidized by non-solar customers to justify the rate change.

If they're so concerned about what solar power costs NVEnergy customers, then consider -

1. Many of the 550 ex-employees will collect unemployment.
2. Some of them will qualify for SNAP.
3. They're not contributing as much to taxes because they're not buying as much, and these jobs paid more than the norm for Northern Nevada. I can't speak for the Vegas area, but I suspect the same is true there.
4. Solar companies won't renew business licenses, buy permits, pay for OSHA-10 or photovoltaic certifications, or pay taxes because they aren't staying in Nevada, so the state loses those income streams

So NVEnergy customers and Nevadans as a whole are still paying, just in a different way.