Bill by ex-energy company executive would slash solar credits. How shady | Opinion
A Los Angeles lawmaker who previously spent 25 years as an executive at one of California’s largest electricity companies wants to retroactively strip solar power owners of their promised credits.
Sounds kind of shady, doesn’t it?
The bill by Assemblymember Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier) proposes to limit the energy credits for solar power generation to 10 years, half the 20-year period previously agreed upon by the state.
Nearly 2 million rooftop solar consumers stand to be undercut by AB 942. The list includes not just homeowners but also cities like Fresno and area school districts that made significant investments in solar energy production, and would lose the long-term financial security of those contracts if this legislation goes through.
Perhaps the most charged aspect is the lawmaker’s own professional resume.
Prior to her election in 2020, Calderon spent 25 years as an executive and lobbyist for Southern California Edison, the primary electricity provider for much of Southern California (its territory stretches to Visalia) and parent company Edison International. Her last job before becoming a politician was managing the utility’s political action committee.
Financial credits given to solar-equipped households that produce more energy than they use have long been targeted by PG&E, So Cal Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric because the energy generated by all those rooftop panels put a crimp in their electricity sales. In 2022, the utilities successfully lobbied the state Public Utility Commission to cut billing credits to 10 years for panels installed after April 15, 2023.
AB 942, which is scheduled for its first committee hearing Wednesday, seeks to target early solar adopters. The same residents and municipalities California encouraged to invest in clean energy.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer penned a scathing letter to the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy, while members of the Fresno City Council took turns assailing the bill during Thursday’s meeting but tabled a formal resolution.
Only last week, the city celebrated the completion of two new projects (including one at the Fresno-Clovis Regional Wastewater Reclamation Facility on Jensen Avenue) that will boost citywide solar development to more than 34 megawatts of solar production and battery storage across eight sites.
Writing to Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), Dyer said AB 942 “poses a significant threat to Fresno” in that it undermines the city’s solar energy investments projected to result in a $154 million reduction of electricity costs over the next 20 years. More than 50% of the city’s utility bill savings would be jeopardized, he added, creating uncertain costs for residents and destabilizing funding for public safety.
“Retroactive policymaking is a detrimental practice that undermines responsible city planning,” Dyer wrote. “While the state is entitled to reassess the future of solar policy, altering established regulations regarding long ago procurement decisions is inappropriate.
“It is alarming to see the Legislature contemplate such actions during this time of uncertainty on the federal level for municipal revenues and clean energy efforts.”
Government bait-and-switch
Regular everyday folks who spent tens of thousands to install rooftop solar panels on their homes thinking they were controlling energy costs while helping the environment also get bait-and-switched by this bill.
“My first reaction was, ‘No way,” said Mark Grossi, my happily retired former Bee colleague who installed solar at his Fresno home before the 2023 deadline. “This is like every other government program you run into. It starts out good, but pretty soon they start pulling parts of it back and now you’re taking blame because you’re getting the benefit of something you paid for.”
That is precisely what is going on. Calderon told the Los Angeles Times she introduced the bill after she learned that 97% of the people in her district were paying higher electric bills because of the solar credits going to the remaining 3% that return power to the grid.
“From an equity standpoint, that’s not fair,” she said. “I would love for everyone to have solar, but we need to do it in a fair and equitable way.”
That statement should short-circuit any rational thinking brain.
Californians don’t pay the nation’s second-highest energy prices behind Hawaii because of solar power consumers. We pay because of unchecked corporate greed.
If Calderon really cared about equity, her legislation would ensure non-solar households and businesses that are supposedly getting the short end of the stick a reduction in their monthly bills. Alas, no. Rather, the savings will go straight into the coffers of PG&E, So Cal Edison and the like – at a time when they are already generating record profits.
