{"id":6974,"date":"2013-12-09T07:51:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T12:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6974"},"modified":"2013-12-09T07:51:41","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T12:51:41","slug":"alec-solar-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/alec-solar-tax.html","title":{"rendered":"ALEC solar tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nArizona, Virginia, and\r\n\r\nnow they’re trying in Georgia<\/a>:\r\nALEC wants to tax your solar panels.\r\nALEC is trying to legislate buggy whip requirements in an age of\r\naffordable electric cars.\r\n

\r\nSuzanne Goldenberg and Ed Pilkington wrote for the Guardian 4 December 2013,\r\n\r\nALEC calls for penalties on ‘freerider’ homeowners in assault on clean energy<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nDocuments obtained by the Guardian<\/a> show the core elements of its\r\nstrategy began to take shape at the previous board meeting in\r\nChicago in August, with meetings of its energy, environment and\r\nagriculture subcommittees.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFurther details of Alec’s strategy were provided by John Eick, the\r\nlegislative analyst for Alec’s energy, environment and agriculture\r\nprogram.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEick told the Guardian the group would be looking closely in the\r\ncoming year at how individual homeowners with solar panels are\r\ncompensated for feeding surplus electricity back into the grid.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“This is an issue we are going to be exploring,” Eick\r\nsaid. He said Alec wanted to lower the rate electricity companies\r\npay homeowners for direct power generation — and maybe even\r\ncharge homeowners for feeding power into the grid.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“As it stands now, those direct generation customers are\r\nessentially freeriders on the system. They are not paying for the\r\ninfrastructure they are using. In effect, all the other non direct\r\ngeneration customers are being penalised,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nEick dismissed the suggestion that individuals who buy and install\r\nhome-based solar panels had made such investments. “How are\r\nthey going to get that electricity from their solar panel to\r\nsomebody else’s house?” he said. “They should be paying\r\nto distribute the surplus electricity.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nExcept it actually saves utilities money, as \r\nAustin Energy discovered<\/a> when they decided to pay 3 cents extra for solar.\r\n

\r\nIt’s not excess solar capacity that’s the problem for electric utilities:\r\nit’s peak capacity, in the afternoon, when utility rates are highest,\r\nas their think tank Edison Electric Institute reported\r\nearlier this year<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn November, Arizona became the first state to charge customers for\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\ninstalling solar panels. The fee, which works out to about $5 a\r\nmonth for the average homeowner, was far lower than that sought by\r\nthe main electricity company, which was seeking to add up to $100 a\r\nmonth to customers’ bills. Gabe Elsner, director of the Energy and\r\nPolicy Institute, said the attack on small-scale solar was part of\r\nthe larger Alec project to block clean energy. “They are\r\ntrying to eliminate pro-solar policies in the states to protect\r\nutility industry profits,” he said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nYep, utility fat cats are attacking rooftop solar because the\r\nhundred-year-old utility baseload-capacity free ride is ending,\r\nand electric utilities don’t like that.\r\n

\r\nSo what is ALEC doing?\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe group sponsored at least 77 energy bills in 34 states last year.\r\nThe measures were aimed at opposing renewable energy standards,\r\npushing through the Keystone XL pipeline project, and barring\r\noversight on fracking, according to an analysis by the Centre for\r\nMedia and Democracy.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nALEC is trying to legislate buggy whip requirements in an age of\r\n\r\naffordable electric cars<\/a>.\r\nThrow their\r\n\r\nhorse manure<\/a> back, and\r\nlook up!\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nThe sun is rising anyway.<\/a>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arizona, Virginia, and now they’re trying in Georgia: ALEC wants to tax your solar panels. ALEC is trying to legislate buggy whip requirements in an age of affordable electric cars. Suzanne Goldenberg and Ed Pilkington wrote for the Guardian 4 December 2013, ALEC calls for penalties on ‘freerider’ homeowners in assault on clean energy, Documents […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[140,14,2,23,24],"tags":[8744,824,2500,8704,6140,7300,8701,8699,8702,12,7,8713,8714,60,319,6],"class_list":["post-6974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alec","category-economy","category-government","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-alec","tag-baseload","tag-capacity","tag-economy","tag-edison-electric-institute","tag-freerider","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-tax","tag-utility","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1Ou","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6975,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6974\/revisions\/6975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}