how we can ever help the environment if people continue to believe that they
have the God given right to control energy. I am all for the rooftop-solar
industry!
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Not long ago, most homeowners saw their roofs as simply something to keep
the rain out. Now they seem them as a source of electricity. Despite the bad
economy, or maybe because of it, the rooftop-solar industry is booming, as
Americans become increasingly intrigued by the idea of turning their roofs
into mini power plants and cutting their electric bills. In 2008, 33,500
rooftop solar systems were installed in the United States, a 63 percent
increase over the amount of capacity installed in 2007. In California, the
solar capital of country, the increase was 95 percent.
Meanwhile, the outlook for the other side of the solar industry-the large,
centralized power plants-isn't so sunny. These megaprojects-think acres of
desert landscape covered in thousands of solar panels sending electricity
through transmission lines-controlled mostly by utility companies that have
had a monopoly over the country's electricity grid since the turn of the
last century, were supposed to be the key to the future of the solar
industry. So far, they're getting vastly outpaced by the decentralized
rooftop approach. According to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council's
2006-08 count, consumers added 522 megawatts to the grid; whereas utility
generated sites added just 96 megawatts.
The disparity has utilities worried about loosing their grip on the
country's energy industry, and the $130 billion residential electricity
market. In some cases, utilities are actually taking direct steps to thwart
rooftop solar. Two weeks ago in Colorado, the state's biggest utility, Xcel,
tried passing a surcharge on homes and businesses using rooftop solar power.
The rate hike would've generated $180 million, $55 million of which was
slated to help fund Xcel's newest coal-fired power plant, the Comanche Unit
3, due to come online this fall. The public went ballistic, and with
pressure from Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, the proposal was eventually
shelved. In early July, New Mexico's biggest utility, PNM, filed an official
request to dramatically reduce incentives for businesses and homeowners to
install solar panels, and is now fighting with state lawmakers over whether
it has the right to exclusively own solar panels systems hooked up to its
grid. During California's last legislative session, Southern California
Edison, which serves 13 million residents, pressured a Palm Springs
assemblyman to pull a bill he'd introduced that would allow the city of Palm
Desert to pay solar users for the excess power they generate.
"There is across the board tension between distributed solar generation and
utilities," says Adam Browning, executive director of The Vote Solar
Initiative, a solar advocacy group in San Francisco. "They've had the energy
pie to themselves for a century, and now facing a future where clean
distributed energy will play a large part, they're looking for ways to
profit from it and maintain control." Can we really blame them though?
That's just capitalism right? "Part of having a monopoly is serving the
public trust," says Browning. "People want solar panels on their roofs, so
utilities should be working to make that happen rather than getting in the
way."
It's not hard to understand why a big utility might not like the idea of
homes, businesses, schools, and even government buildings being covered in
solar panels. If every building in America is generating its own solar
energy, that throws a big wrench into their business model. It's why
utilities have historically been opposed to solar power, say solar's
advocates. But as most states have passed renewable-energy standards
recently, mandating that a certain percentage of their energy come from
renewable sources, utilities have become reluctant players in the solar game
because, frankly, they have no choice. Rather than get on board with rooftop
solar, though, utilities decided to do what they do best: build a
centralized system of large power plants, and make money by charging
customers for taking power off the grid. While large-scale utility projects
do hold the promise of generating massive amounts of electricity, so far
they've delivered precious few new sources of electricity, as dozens of
proposed projects are languishing in the application process. Building the
thousands of miles of new transmission lines these projects require not only
costs millions, it's fraught with red tape: zoning and permitting
regulations, and issues like eminent domain, as lines are strung across both
public and private property.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 called for the addition of 10,000 megawatts of
renewable energy on public lands by 2015, much of which was thought to be
provided by big solar plants. But four years in, things are barely off the
ground. The two biggest solar projects in the U.S., which are both in the
Nevada desert and came online in 2007, combine to produce just 78 megawatts,
14 of which are used solely to power Nellis Air Force Base. Interior
Secretary Ken Salazar says that by 2010, 13 utility projects will be under
construction on public land in the Southwest, but that's still years away
from generating electricity. California has the country's most aggressive
renewable goal, mandating that 20 percent of its energy come from renewable
sources by the end of 2010. Lawmakers are now pushing that to 33 percent by
2020. But at its current pace, it won't come close to being met. None of
Southern California's four biggest utilities, Southern California Edison,
San Diego Gas and Electric, Pacific Gas and Electric, and the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power, are on target largely, critics say, because
they're too focused on trying to make money off big centralized plants.
"The utilities are more interested in protecting their stranglehold on the
power grid and preserving their century-old business model than they are
producing clean electricity," says Jim Harvey, who heads up the Joshua Tree,
Calif.-based Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, an advocacy group
that's staunchly opposed to utility-generated solar power. Harvey actually
believes that the country's entire renewable portfolio can be achieved
through rooftop solar alone. That may be possible from a sheer megawatts
perspective, but from a practical standpoint, it's way over-ambitious. With
no centralized source, how do you run traffic or street lights? What if it
rains for a week? We still don't have foolproof means to store solar power,
so for now, distributed generation needs the grid as a backup.
This isn't to take anything away from the private-sector solar boom. In
2008, rooftop solar added more than 10 times the amount of power to the
country's grid than utilities did. Maryland-based Sun Edison, the country's
biggest installer of solar panels in the retail market, added more
electricity to the grid last year, 25 megawatts, than did the entire utility
industry. San Francisco-based SunRun has come up with a way to let
homeowners make a down payment, usually about $1,500, on what is typically a
$30,000 solar-panel system, lock in a below-market fixed rate for their
electricity, then use the savings to help pay off the cost of the system.
This is all possible thanks to state and federal government subsidies, and
the declining cost of producing electricity from solar panels, down to $6
per watt from about $9 per watt in 2006. "We're buying panels at prices I
didn't think we'd see for at least another decade," says John Berger,
founder of Standard Renewable Energy, a Texas-based company that provides
homeowners and businesses ways to reduce their energy costs, including
on-site solar generation. Berger expects to have revenues of $50 million in
2009, this after doing $11 million in business last year, and only $1.5
million in 2007. He gets particularly agitated when talking about the
utilities. "When solar came along, they thought they could ignore it. Then
they thought they could just monopolize it. But the private sector is giving
them competition, and now they're scared."
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