{"id":11848,"date":"2014-12-15T10:37:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T15:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=11848"},"modified":"2014-12-15T10:41:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T15:41:40","slug":"rooftop-solar-catching-on-1973-anti-finance-law-really-needs-fixing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/rooftop-solar-catching-on-1973-anti-finance-law-really-needs-fixing.html","title":{"rendered":"Rooftop solar catching on; 1973 anti-finance law really needs fixing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nPeople are starting to wake up as the solar sun rises above their horizon.\r\nThis could be the year the Georgia legislature finally passes a bill\r\nto amend the law that inhibits solar financing.\r\nEven the City of Valdosta seems suddenly interested in helping with that.\r\n

\r\nMichael Caputo and Grant Blankenship, GPB, 12 December 2014,\r\n\r\n(VIDEO) Will Solar Power’s Surge in Georgia Make It To Homeowners?<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nEarly adopter Creighton Rosental of Macon is what you’d call a solar\r\npioneer. The early adopter said that he had the 4-kilowatt panels\r\ninstalled on the backyard side of his roof about five years ago.\r\nTwo-thirds of the upfront cost—about $30,000—was covered\r\nby a federal tax credit and a Georgia state credit.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“They built a frame and mounted it to the roof, which was a\r\nsubstantial fairly substantial enterprise.” Rosental said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nHe actually sells the solar power generated back to Georgia Power\r\nand then gets a credit on his bill.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We’re essentially a mini power plant,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFive years ago this collection system was so exotic, Rosental said,\r\nthat it seemed as though local Georgia Power employees didn’t know\r\nhow to hook-up meters to read both the production of the solar power\r\nand the energy his home used.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“A lot of people at Georgia Power didn’t know anything about solar,”\r\nhe said\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nTell me about it. In 2009 there were only four certified solar installers\r\nin the entire state of Georgia.\r\nNow there are hundreds, including a couple in Valdosta and one in Adel.\r\n

\r\nIt’s good to see somebody else following Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning’s\r\ngradual inching towards solar power.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBut Georgia Power and its parent “ the Southern Company\r\n“ have certainly been paying closer attention to solar power,\r\nprimarily because of its tumbling price. The drop took everyone by\r\nsurprise.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIt certainly didn’t take Tom Fanning by surprise, since\r\nat the 22 May 2013 SO stockholder meeting, in response\r\nto a question by me,\r\n\r\nFanning announced a tiger team<\/a> to come up with a business model\r\nfor distributed solar and wind energy. He said it would report back that\r\nsame summer.\r\nAt that same meeting I said “I know you know what Moore’s Law is”\r\nand he nodded; being a former Chief Information Officer of course\r\nhe knows how Moore’s Law drove the exponential adoption of\r\ncomputers, PCs,\r\n\r\nthe Internet<\/a>, smart phones, and tablets,\r\nand how it’s driving solar power deployment now<\/a>.\r\nAnd of course, as CEO of the second largest (by retail sales) electric\r\nutility in the country, he knew about\r\nthe January 2013 report by utility think-tank Edison Electric Institute\r\n\r\nsaying rooftop solar is a disruptive factor<\/a> on the century-old\r\nbaseload-capacity utility business model.\r\nThat (and the rocketing rise of SolarCity’s stock) is why he appointed\r\nthat tiger team.\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe next day, AP\r\nreported Standard & Poor’s lowered Southern Company’s rating from\r\nstable to negative<\/a>, due to unrecovered cost overruns on Kemper Coal in\r\nMississippi, potential for the same at nuclear Plant Vogtle in Georgia,\r\nand implicitly because of lack of enough shift to renewable solar and\r\nwind power.\r\n

\r\n\r\nOther stock analysts were\r\n\r\nquite explicit about SO’s lack of emphasis on renewable energy<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nAnd 11 July 2013\r\n\r\nthe Georgia Public Service Commission required Georgia Power\r\nto double the amount of solar power it would buy<\/a>,\r\nafter strong suggestions from throughout the state,\r\nand despite a failed astroturf campaign against by fossil fuel companies.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n21 August 2013, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)\r\nJon Wellinghoff predicted\r\n\r\n“Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything.”<\/a>\r\nHow soon? Within a decade, he said,\r\nmatching\r\n\r\nmy previous prediction<\/a>\r\nwithin one year.\r\nIn April 2014\r\ndata from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (eia)\r\nshowed that\r\n\r\nU.S. solar capacity grew more than 400% in 4 years<\/a>,\r\nproving Wellinghoff right.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSolar charging stations for cars were featured at the\r\n\r\n28 May 2014 Southern Company stockholder meeting<\/a>,\r\nand Tom Fanning told everyone he drives a Tesla now.\r\nBut when I asked him about that tiger team report,\r\nhe said it was released internally, and it’s true he never\r\nsaid it would be public.\r\nThe current executive in charge of that team said if they\r\nreleased it publicly they would have to redact it so much\r\nthere wouldn’t be left, because it was “brutally honest”.\r\nThat’s the problem: Southern Company’s centralized utility\r\nbusiness culture\r\nhas a hard time adapting or incorporating distributed\r\nrooftop solar power.\r\n

\r\nBack to the GPB article:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nJust a year ago, Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning told the Energy\r\nInformation Administration Conference that it will take some time\r\nfor solar to be price competitive.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“For the southeast where we have nine and a half cent power on\r\nthe average. It will probably be limited in its penetration until\r\nthe end of the decade, 2018… 2020,” he said then.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn its filing with the PSC, Georgia Power wrote that these bids show\r\nsolar can “provide competitive pricing when challenged to do so.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIt’s Georgia Power and Southern Company that are being challenged\r\nto come up with a business plan that incorporates solar power,\r\nbefore solar eats their lunch.\r\n

\r\nThe GPB story continues about\r\nPaul Wolff of the Tybee Island Council, including:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe city has plugged into a nationwide program called Solarize.\r\nTybee Island would buy solar panels in bulk and offer them to\r\ninterested residents at a reduced cost. It’s the first solarize\r\nprogram in the state. Paul Wolff, a Tybee Council member, said other\r\ncities that have done a Solarize project quickly see interest spread\r\nbeyond their borders.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSolar’s rapid drop in price\r\ncertainly didn’t surprise Paul Wolff,\r\nwho told LAKE 17 February 2012 that\r\n\r\nhe had invested in solar panels because<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nI did the math on it ahead of time. I had a bunch of mutual funds\r\nthat hadn’t done anything in a long time. I figured out given the\r\nstate and federal tax credits what the payback would be, and it came\r\nout to be about eight years. So I just divided that out, and by\r\nselling mutual funds and investing that money in solar panels on my\r\nroof it’s an eleven percent return. And in this economic climate I\r\nhave nothing else yielding anywhere near that. So that’s a selling\r\npoint.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHere’s\r\n\r\na video tour of Paul Wolff’s weatherstripping and solar installation<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nThe GPB story continues:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nAnd Roger [sic] Green, CEO of Greenavations and a solar advocate,\r\nsaid market forces will make it likely that homeowners ultimately\r\nsee some benefit from solar.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I got asked by some people, some political people just what exactly\r\nwas this gift that god gave to the south,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSolar’s rapid rise certainly didn’t surprise Robert Green, who was\r\na main speaker at\r\n\r\na Solar Energy Forum in Savannah, 1 December 2012 (see videos)<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nThe GPB story concludes:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nMeanwhile the leasing option “ the Power Purchase Agreement\r\n“ will again go before the state legislators in 2015.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nAs it has every year since about 2000.\r\nSee other post about some solar bills in recent years<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nThis could be the year that antique\r\n1973 Territorial Electric Service Act<\/a>\r\nthat prevents solar financing finally gets fixed.\r\nAnd you can help!\r\n

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