Real Industry [RE-wrenches]

Fri Feb 7 12:53:06 PST 2003

Dear Dana,

Laughing at Californians is a past time even Californians enjoy, but fighting
polluting monopoly utilities, their suppliers and the rich and powerful people
behind these companies is serious business.

In 1972, California Governor Reagan was gutting the state environmental and
education programs. When I I heard that my job teaching building construction
was being cut back, I left California to live in the Ozark National Forest. The
Arkansas hills and hollers are not as grand as the country around Ridgway, but
they are a pretty nice place and seemingly far away from it all. Anyway, I had
my PV homestead and PV mail order business and was going along nicely until
President Reagan and the Republican Congress began shutting down national
renewable energy and environmental programs. There was no getting away from
people who put short-term profit over long-term social and environmental needs,
so I moved back to California in 1982 to get more PV in use right in the belly
of the beast.

Californians may sometimes seem silly, but some of us are very serious about
making PV a part of the grid mix. We fought hard against monopoly utilities and
won net metering in 1996 and the PV rebate in 1998.

Here is some information about the so-called subsidy. The California PV and
small wind emerging renewables buydown rebate comes from a $0.0025/kWh charge
on everyone's electric bill. The money is used to pay for public benefit
programs that help low-income people pay their electric bills and to pay for
electric research and development, electric energy efficiency and renewables.
The charge was initially imposed on ratepayers March 1998 because the state's
three investor-owned utilities (San Diego Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas &
Electric and Southern California Edison) that sell electricity to 80% of rate
payers in their monopoly territories did not want to charge for and administer
the public benefit programs. Their reason was simply that public benefit
programs are not profitable.

The public benefits law was enacted for 4 years. In 2001, the law was reviewed,
voted on, almost unanimously approved and extended until 2012. Californians
almost universally agree that paying a few dollars more a month (600 kWh/month
x $0.0025 = $1.50) to help low-income people, encourage electric energy
efficiency, support electric research and development and support electric
renewables is very important, affordable and has a good return on investment.

The buydown rebate is a subsidy only in the sense that almost all Californians,
through their elected representatives, agree to put a few bucks a month into a
pool that anyone who meets the requirements can dip into. If you can't pay your
electric bill, your utility company will dip in for you and pay your bill and
even use the money to give you compact fluorescent bulbs to help reduce your
consumption. If you are a business, you can dip in for money to pay part of the
cost of electric efficiency improvements to reduce your expenses so you can
compete against businesses elsewhere that use cheaper and dirtier electricity.
Granted, only 12% of California's utility electricity comes from biomass,
waste, geothermal, small hydro, solar and wind resources which cost more than
dirty electricity (another 11% comes from large hydro, but we are working to
remove some dams and rebuild the environment). Part of the public benefit
charge is spent on electric R&D which the utility companies dip into so they
can pay their stockholders slightly larger dividends rather than pay for R&D to
improve the product that they sell to ratepayers.

Only 10% of the $540 million collected in 4 years for public benefit renewables
goes to the emerging renewables buydown program. If you have an electric meter,
you are eligible for the PV and wind buydown rebate. Electric utilities are not
eligible for the emerging renewables buydown rebate, but they do spend public
benefits money to administer the rebate program and they do take some of the
90% allocated for renewables.

You ask what will happen if the government changes its mind? Do you mean what
will happen when rich and politically powerful people take the law into their
own hands against the will of the people? 70% of Americans wanted the Vietnam
war to end, yet it took 10 years of protesting to stop the war. For decades,
over 70% of Americans have wanted solar electricity and are willing to pay a
little more for it, but energy companies refuse to serve their needs. So people
are protesting utility companies' unwillingness to change by putting PV into
the grid with systems on their homes and businesses.

What did I do before the incentive program? I sold PV by mail order. If the
California PV rebate goes away and the grid PV market collapses, I will go back
to selling PV by mail order.

Best regards,
Joel Davidson

Dana Orzel wrote:

> "A problem will occur if and when the
> subsidies have dropped below a level that provides enough incentive for
> new PV construction.  This will present a dilemma for solar contractors,
> how do we provide free service calls if there is no more income being
> generated by new PV system installations? "
>
> "Graham Owen"
>
> Q - What did you do before the incentive program?
> Those of us in states without any government $ solar programs are laughing
> at this kind of California whine [ or is it the California wine]. So the
> question is really,
> "Is this a real industry or a government subsidy program?"
>
> If the root of the income source is government, and gov't. changes its mind
> [as it does] then what?
>
> Responsible Technologies for Responsible People.
> Great Solar Works, Inc.
> dana at solarwork.com - 970.626.5253
> Ridgway, CO, USA
>
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