Wrenching in L.A. [RE-wrenches]

[Joel Davidson]

The people "downtown" know about the lockout. On May 11, I sent the
following email to the L.A. Mayor's office. On May 13, these issues were
discussed at the Mayor's Solar Executive Focus Group meeting and are still
unresolved.

I strongly support the Mayor's efforts to create more solar jobs and a
local sustainable solar industry and request a brief discussion at the
May 13 meeting on two issues that directly affect these goals. The two
issues are LADWP's PV system lockouts and reducing the PV rebate.

LADWP recently notified customers that their PV system was temporarily
disconnected in order to insure the safety of field workers. Safety was
a major discussion topic at the April 22 meeting, but LADWP personnel
did not express any concerns, or mention the pending lockout or seek
help from solar industry experts. The lockouts have delayed projects,
caused PV businesses to lose income, put an unwarranted shadow of doubt
and fear in customers' minds and undermine decades of PV industry work
providing safe solar power systems. I want to know what LADWP will do to
restore people's confidence that PV is safe so that we can recover from
this setback.

LADWP repeatedly urges people to take advantage of the $6/W rebate
before December 31, 2002, after which it will be reduced. There is no
reason to reduce the rebate. The money comes from a public benefit
charge that all electricity customers pay and the charge is not being
reduced. Further, LADWP promoted one company's solar factory which gives
that company a de facto monopoly. Reducing the rebate now continues to
give that company an unfair advantage because it does not allow
locally-owned companies enough time to open more solar factories. This
unnecessary rebate reduction sends a terrible message of favoritism and
unsustained commitment to the solar industry that still remembers
LADWP's previous solar campaign. I want the rebate to remain unchanged
as long as the public benefit charges remain unchanged so that a
competitive local solar economy can be established.

The PV industry, many LADWP employees and many citizens want 100,000
solar roofs in Los Angeles by 2010. However, PV system lockouts and
cutting rebates are not the way to achieve this goal. I want to know how
LADWP plans to facilitate the rapid deployment of over 1,000
customer-owned PV systems per month to achieve the 100,000 roof goal.

I hope you will allow a brief discussion about these two issues and
bring this matter to the Mayor's attention.

Thank you for your efforts.



Graham Owen wrote:

> William wrote:
>
> I believe this needs publicity.  Graham may not be the one to speak out.
> It appears he has his reasons, one of which might be that it could b e
> said that he is looking to keep his business growing whole ignoring
> safety concerns.
>
> William,
>
> This lockout situation has been going on for over two months now in Los
> Angeles.  At the onset the focus was centered on system safety and
> islanding issues.  This was not the time to go public.  The safety
> issues recently faded away as system testing was completed.  Now that
> the lockouts continue with the safety issue behind us, now is time to go
> public.  I have contacted a number of environmental groups and
> politicians in the past week.  There is considerable interest, below is
> one such reply.  I have removed his phone number.
>
> Graham,
> Thanks for the email. So any system that was installed by non-union
> labor is being locked out??? That's crazy. So does DWP claim they
> have that right due to the fact they paid for part of the system?
> But once its installed, its private property. What can they
> prevent, the putting of electricity back in the grid?
>
> Help me understand more, as I know folks in the Mayor's office and
> folks at IBEW.
>
> Matt Petersen, President and CEO
> Global Green USA
> the US affiliate of Green Cross International
> Mikhail S. Gorbachev, President
> www.globalgreen.org
>

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: michael.welch at homepower.com

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9
Or send an email to: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================