Maneuver Casts Shadow on Solar Incentives

Re “Power Play: Big Energy vs. Solar,” Opinion, Aug. 11: The backhand maneuvering by the “big three” utilities in diluting Assembly Bill 58 proves once again that electricity is one commodity that should never be privatized. A private utility in the business of generating profits, not just providing a service, will not want to buy back electricity at the same rate that it sells it, obviously--even if that energy is clean and renewable. Market forces don’t assign different values to clean and dirty energy. Only society can do that.

Luckily, solar energy generated on the roofs of private homes is a no-brainer. It reduces global warming, pollution, infrastructure needs, depletion of natural resources, dependency on foreign oil and balance-of-payment deficits. It generates jobs in construction and manufacturing.

Solar panels on rooftops should be promoted with government loans to homeowners, loans repaid with that same clean energy that those panels produce and sold back to the grid at market rates.

Rolando Klein

Pasadena

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As the owners of a recently installed three-kilowatt solar electric system that produces over 300 nonpolluting kilowatt-hours of electricity from the sun every month, we feel we have made a small contribution toward easing the energy problems facing the state. We did so not only from altruistic motives but because of a unique set of state and federal incentives (rebates, accelerated depreciation, tax write-offs) and the provision known as “net metering,” which allows us credit on our Edison bill for the surplus energy we produce during the day. We expect to pay off our investment in about three years.

All this will change if the power companies have their way in Sacramento.

AB 58 would cut the net metering rate to less than that produced by polluting sources of power (coal and gas), making the payoff for this considerable investment much longer for homeowners and small-business owners.

This provision is in an amendment to AB 58, sponsored by Edison, PG&E; and Sempra. It will discourage the solar option at the very moment that it has become affordable for the larger population. AB 58 extends the state incentives past their expiration date this year, but the lobbyists have inserted the “poison pill” of the rate decrease to enhance their profit margin at the expense of present and future solar installations.

Don and Jacky Wallace

Camarillo