By Eli Beckman
https://enewspaper.marinij.com?selDate=20220205&goTo=A09&artid=1 5 FEB 2022 A9
As a member of the Corte Madera Town Council, I’ve watched with pride as hundreds of residents and businesses have made the decision to go solar, including our local government. Our community has saved thousands of dollars a month in energy bills, even as we reduce the emissions threatening our homes with flood and fire.
That’s why I’m urging the California Public Utilities Commission, the state regulator in charge of electrical power, to do more than just delay its consideration of a rule change that would make solar unaffordable for millions of Californians. The proposal should be scrapped.
Those who have gone (or are considering going) solar would see vastly diminished returns for the energy they sell back to the grid, on top of a new monthly fee for solar users only; experts say new rooftop solar installations could drop by anywhere from 20% to 80%.
Implementing the proposed “Net Electrical Metering 3.0” plan risks hobbling California as we wage the most dire fight of our times, to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and slow the dangerous march of climate change.
Proponents of the proposed rule argue that rebates for rooftop solar are pushing the cost of maintaining our aging electrical grid disproportionately onto customers who don’t have solar — often, Californians who are lower-income or people of color. They also say that the explosion of rooftop solar threatens to replace utility lineworkers — often a well-paid, union position — with lower-paid, non-unionized rooftop solar installers.
Both are real concerns worth addressing. It’s imperative that every Californian have equal access to affordable power regardless of race or income, and that those working to power our homes and businesses get fair wages and safe working conditions.
Brighter minds than mine have already proposed numerous ideas for realizing these goals without penalizing the millions of people powering our green energy revolution. Utilities could offer low-income solar customers the full solar credit currently available only to those who don’t receive other subsidies. Regulators could distribute the solar rebates from apartment buildings to tenants, giving renters a share of the rewards. And we must make sure our labor laws allow green energy workers to organize freely.
But there are two even larger issues at play. First, the way we’ve historically built — with thousands of buildings and millions of people dependent on one massive, expensive, fragile electrical grid — makes our electricity supply inherently vulnerable. The lessons of the last decade alone make clear that whether the threat is climate change, cyberattacks, or just poor maintenance, a decentralized system is vital to energy security and resiliency, and widespread adoption of rooftop solar is the largest step we’ve taken in that direction to date.
Second, by handing for-profit companies a monopoly over the electricity that 40 million Californians rely on, we play a dangerous game — one for which thousands have already paid the price with their homes or lives. The frantic number-crunching around NEM 3.0 is just another illustration of that point, as regulators and utility executives scramble to design a system that ensures continuous profits for the three big players in an industry that, at this point in history, may simply not be profitable — at least not at electric rates that anyone wants to pay. And when the powers that be are determined to gin up a profit where profit may not exist, someone has to pay for it — under this proposal, it’s every Californian who’s done right by our planet and gone solar.
Let’s put the Golden State’s ingenuity to work — and perhaps some of this year’s $45 billion surplus — to find a solution that works for ratepayers, electrical workers, and Californians of every stripe who deserve a future of clean, safe, and reliable electricity.
Eli Beckman is a member of the Corte Madera Town Council.
