Letters to the Editor: Utilities got their wish on solar. So we’ll get lower bills, right?

To the editor: The vote by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to dramatically reduce how much rooftop solar customers are paid for the electricity they send back into the grid will not help anyone other than the utility companies.

I challenge the CPUC to examine one year from now the electric bills of the low-income families that the utilities claim are harmed by the current subsidies. I predict they will find that nothing has changed, but the electric utilities will have reaped a windfall.

As for their hope that solar owners will install batteries that will feed into the grid in the evening, think again. As a solar owner (middle class, not wealthy), I would disconnect from the grid if I could save enough money to install batteries. Where is the incentive for people to save and take out loans to install solar and batteries in the first place?

Dana Bingham, Apple Valley

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To the editor: Much like climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers or anyone else basing an argument on a false premise, the state’s big electricity companies keep changing their argument. They finally found one that persuaded the CPUC to lower reimbursements to solar customers.

Sadly, the CPUC has been conned.

This time, the utilities argued that lowering reimbursement rates will encourage storage by solar generators, who then will dump stored energy into the grid during peak demand hours. The way the utility company lobbyists phrased it, the CPUC was persuaded.

But, stripped of its fancy phrasing, the utilities are telling us that solar generators will be more inclined to purchase expensive storage if the utilities pay less for the stored electricity. What?

Eric Fleetwood, Dana Point

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To the editor: Solar energy is great and the government should produce more of it for everyone equally.

But to subsidize rooftop solar for the wealthy, and sell energy back to the electric company, is insane. Why not subsidize people digging wells in their backyard and selling it to the L.A. Department of Water and Power?

Edward Gilbert, Studio City