Well not a "wall" exactly -- more like a Tea Party "speed-bump." More on that in a minute, first the good news about solar-wind "Grid Parity" and its inevitable possible consequences, from a "venture" article hot off the business presses this morning.
The coming era of unlimited — and free — clean energy
by Vivek Wadhwa, venturebeat.com -- September 21, 2014 4:00 AM
[...]
Futurist Ray Kurzweil notes that solar power has been doubling every two years for the past 30 years, as costs have been dropping. He says solar energy is only six doublings, or less than 14 years, away from meeting 100 percent of today’s energy needs. Energy usage will keep increasing, so this is a moving target. But, by Kurzweil’s estimates, inexpensive renewable sources will provide more energy than the world needs in less than 20 years. Even then, we will be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that falls on the Earth.
In places such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and the Southwest U.S., residential-scale solar production has already reached “grid parity” with average residential electricity prices. In other words, it costs no more in the long term to install solar panels than to buy electricity from utility companies. The prices of solar panels have fallen 75 percent in the past five years alone and will fall much further as the technologies to create them improve and scale of production increases. By 2020, solar energy will be price-competitive with energy generated from fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis in most parts of the world. Within the next decade, it will cost a fraction of what fossil fuel-based alternatives do.
[...] This has profound implications.
First, there will be disruption of the entire fossil-fuel industry, starting with utility companies, which will face declining demand and then bankruptcy. Several of them see the writing on the wall. The smart ones are embracing solar and wind power. Others are lobbying to stop the progress of solar power -- at all costs.
[...]
Some utility owners (and suppliers) see the 'solar writing' on the wall --
the shrinking of their monopoly-like profits -- and they don't like it one bit.
Enter the usual suspects ...
Koch brothers, big utilities attack solar, green energy policies
by Evan Halper, latimes.com -- April 19, 2014
[...]
The Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and some of the nation's largest power companies have backed efforts in recent months to roll back state policies that favor green energy. The conservative luminaries have pushed campaigns in Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona, with the battle rapidly spreading to other states.
Alarmed environmentalists and their allies in the solar industry have fought back, battling the other side to a draw so far. Both sides say the fight is growing more intense as new states, including Ohio, South Carolina and Washington, enter the fray.
At the nub of the dispute are two policies found in dozens of states. One requires utilities to get a certain share of power from renewable sources. The other, known as net metering, guarantees homeowners or businesses with solar panels on their roofs the right to sell any excess electricity back into the power grid at attractive rates.
[...]
It seems those cat-seat power-brokers would rather keep their cash-cow all to themselves.
Enter ALEC ... they know how to push state legislature's buttons -- their Xerox copying, "boiler-plate" fowarding, NEW Legislation-issuing buttons ...
ALEC may make arguments that sound reasonable on the surface, but one only needs to look at some of their underwriters to understand their real agenda ... Here's a hint: they don't represent us.
Net Metering Reform -- alec.org/publications
Across the country, more and more customers are using rooftop solar panels and other small-scale, on-site power sources known as distributed generation (DG). To encourage the introduction of these systems when they first came to market years ago, many states approved a billing system called net metering. Today, 43 states plus the District of Columbia have net metering policies and regulations. While these policies vary in details, DG customers are typically credited at the full retail electric rate for any excess electricity they generate. There are, however, a number of negative implications associated with such policies.
In Reforming Net Metering: Providing a Bright and Equitable Future, Tom Tanton, President of T² & Associates, (1) offers a primer on DG and net metering, (2) discusses the importance and value of the electric grid, (3) reviews existing studies on the cost and cost-shifting elements of net metering, and (4) provides an analysis of net metering from a competitive market perspective. [...]
Here's the net-metering counter-attack as penned by that ALEC expert, and no doubt being provided in triplicate, to a state legislature somewhere near you ... just waiting for their "rubber stamp" votes, to roll-back the promise of a
utility-free Free Energy age:
Net Metering: Providing a Bright and Equitable Future (pdf)
by Tom Tanton, President of T² & Associates -- alec.org/docs
[pg 23]
APPENDIX 2 -- Updating Net Metering Policies Resolution
WHEREAS, the U.S. electric grid delivers a product essential to all Americans; and
WHEREAS, electricity runs our economy—it powers our homes, businesses, industries, and the smart technologies and innovations that enhance our quality of life; and
[...]
WHEREAS, ALEC’s Electricity Transmission Principles assert that the electricity transmission system must be “coordinated in a manner that satisfies current needs and future growth, and that provides energy consumers with the necessary levels of system security, overall reliability, and access to the most economic and diverse sources of electricity”; and
WHEREAS, there is growing interest among customers to self-serve with on-site rooftop solar panels; and
[...]
WHEREAS, some states now have net metering policies that credit rooftop solar or other DG [distributed generation] customers for any excess electricity that they generate and sell using the grid, and require utilities to buy this power at the full retail rate; and
WHEREAS, the full retail rate of electricity often includes the fixed costs of the poles, wires, meters, advanced technologies, and other infrastructure that make the electric grid safe, reliable, and able to accommodate solar panels and other DG [distributed generation] systems; and
WHEREAS, when net-metered customers are credited for the full retail cost of electricity, they effectively avoid paying the grid costs, and these costs for maintaining the grid then are shifted to those customers without rooftop solar or other DG [distributed generation] systems through higher utility bills; and
[...]
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the American Legislative Exchange Council encourages state policymakers to recognize the value the electric grid delivers to all and to:
1. Update net metering policies to require that everyone who uses the grid helps pay to maintain it and to keep it operating reliably at all times;
2. Create a fixed grid charge or other rate mechanisms that recover grid costs from DG systems to ensure that costs are transparent to the customer; and
3. Ensure electric rates are fair and affordable for all customers and that all customers have safe and reliable electricity.
Adopted by the Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force on Dec 6, 2013.
Approved by the ALEC Board of Directors on Jan 9, 2014.
Well ALEC was
pushing steam-rolling their wares, in the very ALEC-friendly state of Oklahoma -- when they ran into that unexpected "speed-bump" -- some anti-corporate activists, operating under the umbrella of the Tea Party ... (for how much longer, is still yet to be seen.)
The Tea Party Wants to Help You Go Solar
Utility companies are waging war on the solar industry. But the clean energy movement has found an unexpected ally in their fight.
by Josh Voorhees, slate.com -- April 23 2014
Last week, with little fanfare and even less debate, Oklahoma lawmakers quietly voted to reverse a nearly four-decade-old law that had barred utility companies from charging customers who install solar panels on their homes more than those who don’t. The bill, which passed almost unanimously, would have effectively cleared the way for utilities in the Sooner State to force homeowners who install solar panels to pay for both the electricity they buy from the grid and for a portion of the electricity they sell back to it.
[...]
Then, on Tuesday, to the surprise of pretty much everyone involved, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Mary Fallin, issued an executive order largely undercutting the provision, dealing an unexpected defeat to major utilities and their deep-pocketed backers -- a group that includes the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful national membership group for conservative state lawmakers.
Perhaps the only thing more surprising was who had helped defeat Oklahoma’s power companies. Tucked among the usual green suspects were the type of advocates that typically don’t associate with the clean energy movement but have nonetheless proved crucial to securing a political victories in a string of dark-red states: Tea Party conservatives.
[...]
The Oklahoma Governor was dissuaded from
signing rubber-stamping the ALEC-Koch
Solar-Surcharge agenda, reportedly convinced by the conservative-green group called TUSK, among others:
Why Tea Party Conservatives Are Rallying for Solar
by Amanda H. Miller, cleanenergyauthority.com -- November 13, 2013
A splinter group of Tea Party Republicans have linked arms with environmental advocates and solar industry groups to fight for distributed energy generation.
[...]
The Green Tea Coalition isn’t so much green as it is an advocate for the free market -- a common conservative principle. As the cost of solar panels has dropped -- more than 57 percent since 2011, according to Bloomberg -- and new financing models have made it easier for home and business owners to afford solar installations, solar has become competitive.
[...]
Barry Goldwater Jr., son of famed conservative California congressman, launched the Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed (TUSK) organization in Arizona and is working closely with solar industry group The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) to fight Arizona Public Service’s bid to reverse the financial benefits of distributed solar in that desert state. [...]
Debates over distributed solar are also raging in Dooley’s home state of Georgia, as well as North Carolina, Vermont, California and Colorado, amongst others.
A few morals to this story:
1. Economic Freedom arguments can bring together unusual allies.
2. "Grid Parity" is setting the Energy Future agenda, and the role for "Public Utilities" within that future still needs to be seriously defined. (ie. How do WE make them, more Public?)
3. The Koch-ALEC agenda for "writing" (and stalling) our clean, free Energy Future CAN BE STOPPED, even it is only one state at a time.
In conclusion, we just need to keep focusing on those inevitable yet-to-happen Grid Parity consequences, and the long-run "costs" -- or lack thereof -- for ALL of us.
Even if that means marching along side some unusual anti-monopoly allies.