PUC Approves 11-Year Solar Power Plan
State energy regulators Thursday approved spending an initial $300 million in subsidies to install as many as 1 million rooftop systems for generating nonpolluting solar electricity.
The five-member California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously for an ambitious 11-year solar program, fulfilling a key pledge by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during his 2003 gubernatorial campaign. The solar plan stalled in the Legislature this year.
Outgoing Commissioner Susan Kennedy, who will become Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff in January, praised the commission for “stepping into the breach” when a similar administration effort “got bogged down by politics in Sacramento.”
The two-step solar program is “truly momentous” and should restore California to international leadership in developing low-cost, photovoltaic panels that turn sunlight into electricity, an industry the state pioneered 20 years ago, President Michael Peevey said.
The bulk of the $3.2-billion California Solar Initiative will be considered by the commission in January. The program will be paid for by the customers of Southern California Edison Co., Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., and the subsidies will be available to homeowners, businesses and governments.
Edison, which serves 13 million people in Southern and Central California but not the city of Los Angeles, estimates that the solar subsidy would add approximately 55 cents per month to the bill of an average home, consuming 550 kilowatt hours of electricity. Industrial, commercial and institutional customers would pay proportionately more.
The size of the solar subsidy is designed to decline annually as production of new solar units increases and costs are lowered, the commission said.
“This is the kind of long-term, visionary policy that allows the U.S. solar industry to invest in technological innovation and scale up manufacturing,” said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Industries Assn.
Critics of the governor’s initiative, however, wonder whether it’s wise to rush to install 3,000 megawatts of solar power -- enough electricity to eliminate the need for building six modern power plants -- by 2016. Solar power still isn’t priced competitively with electricity generated by windmills or natural gas turbines, say opponents.
In other decisions Thursday, the commission approved a request from Edison, a unit of Edison International, to spend $680 million to replace steam generators at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
Commissioners also allowed Rosemead-based Edison to raise its 2006 return on equity to 11.6% from 11.4%. San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric Co., a unit of PG&E; Corp., got its rate boosted to 11.35% from 11.22%, while San Diego Gas & Electric Co., part of Sempra Energy, went to 10.7% from 10.37%.
