Sunny Nevada Just Killed The Solar Industry With 40% Tax Hike

[singular_me]

freedom game scam... first the game of the carrot and the donkey to give a sense of freedom... then taking away the carrot and being punished.
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Sunny Nevada Just Killed The Solar Industry With 40% Tax Hike, Derailing The Off-Grid Movement
16th January 2016

While Nevadans were celebrating the holidays under solar-powered lights, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously to increase a monthly fee on solar customers by 40% while reducing the amount they get paid for excess power sold to the grid. Adding insult to injury, they made the rate changes retroactive, sabotaging consumer investments in solar energy.

This single move by government regulators will effectively kill the solar industry in Nevada and put an end to the surge of people seeking to detach from the grid by harnessing their own energy from the sun. Just as importantly, it serves to protect the profits of Nevada’s public utility company, NV Energy.’

http://www.activistpost.com/2016/01/sunny-nevada-just-killed-the-solar-industry-with-40-tax-hike-derailing-the-off-grid-movement.html

[monty]

If you read that activist post article it states "solar customers", customers who have solar units installed and are also connected to the grid. They will be hit with a 40% rate increase for any commercial power they use and a reduced rate for any excess they sell back to the grid. Also it is retroactive. There is no way the can charge anyone who is 100% off-grid.

It appears the new law has backfired on the author of the bill.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-11/author-of-nevada-solar-law-concerned-as-solar-companies-flee
Nevada Solar-Law Author Concerned as Solar Companies Flee

Patricia Farley, lead author of a bill authorizing Nevada regulators to revise state solar policies, didn’t expect the new rules to prompt two major solar companies to cut jobs and leave the state.
“I’m absolutely concerned,” Farley, a Republican state senator from Nevada’s 8th District, said in a phone interview Monday.


The legislation (https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/78th2015/Bills/SB/SB374.pdf)was passed in March, and had the blessing of the solar industry and the state’s utilities, she said. It gave the Nevada Public Utilities Commission authority to create a new class of utility customers that use solar panels to generate power. It also granted the PUC the right to increase fees for these customers’ usage of the power grid.


The commissioners in late December voted (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-22/buffett-s-utility-scores-win-against-musk-s-solarcity-on-credits) to increase a fixed monthly fee for solar customers by about 40 percent and reduced the amount customers get paid for excess power they sell to the grid. It also made these changes retroactive.


Job Cuts


The solar industry balked at the changes. SolarCity Corp. announced (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-06/solarcity-to-cut-550-jobs-in-nevada-as-fees-on-solar-increased)last week plans to fire 550 field and support staff in Nevada and Sunrun Inc. followed a day later with “hundreds” more job cuts.


“I’ll have to take a look at the numbers,” Farley said. “I have to assume that the PUC would do the right thing. People who already had solar relied on the old rate structure. They should have a remedy.”


The industry last week sought to halt the new fees and to force regulators to reconsider (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/sunrun-joins-nevada-solar-exodus-in-response-to-utility-fees) their decision. The PUC plans to hear the first request at a hearing in Carson City Wednesday, and solar industry supporters and workers plan to protest the new rates at a rally there and in Las Vegas.


The issue is playing out across the U.S. as surging demand for rooftop solar panels eats into utilities’ revenue. Regulators are grappling with how to balance desires for cleaner energy and customer choice with utilities that say customers who go solar aren’t paying for their use of the electric grid.


“There is significant cost-shifting with solar that needs to be addressed,” Farley said. “SolarCity and Sunrun were at the table and agreed that the best place for that is at the PUC. That’s still the case.”
SolarCity Chief Executive Officer Lyndon Rive said his company agreed to support the law because utilities were about to reach the state’s self-imposed limit on rooftop solar installations and sales would have stopped without a compromise to lift it. He expects the PUC to reconsider the ruling as the ramifications became more clear.


“We literally had a gun against our head to support it,” Rive said in an interview Monday.

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. (http://bloom.bg/dg-ws-core-bcom-a1)

[Ponce]

Simple.........get a land patent and tell them...........TO GET FUCKKKKKK........ idiots..

I have seven panels and six more in reserve......ready and waiting.

V

[palani]

Monty is right.

There is no straddling the fence on any issue, whether it be solar energy or politics. In the case of solar if you try to remain hooked to the grid you will be penalized by higher grid energy costs. If you are 100% off grid there is no penalty.

Take the lottery (please). The system has come up with a way to tax the mathematically challenged. Or like I like to say ... the lights in Vegas are paid for by the losers ... and there are lots of lights.

People who still believe in the monetary system play the lottery, participate in social (in)security, work 9-5 and buy the banker 3 houses to pay for the one they choose to sign a mortgage on.

In politics you participate by registering. This is all you need to do. You don't even have to vote. What is the alternative? Personally I don't care who takes office as long as he registers his oath and bond with me so that I have recourse when he damages me.

These are all fence straddling examples. When life looks dismal stop and think how much you participate in fence straddling schemes.

[singular_me]

but the plan, I think, is to discourage solar firms to persue business, then in the long run, it will just make solar either a lot more expensive or just impossible.


If you read that activist post article it states "solar customers", customers who have solar units installed and are also connected to the grid. They will be hit with a 40% rate increase for any commercial power they use and a reduced rate for any excess they sell back to the grid. Also it is retroactive. There is no way the can charge anyone who is 100% off-grid.

[Twisted Titan]

The beast will not tolerate any loss of control....the only recourse is to cut the cord and tell the beast to eff itself.