You just invested in a brand new EV charged by your rooftop solar and battery. Then, a year later, your utility adds a $50/month fixed charge to your bill just because you have rooftop solar. How would you feel? This scenario is not just hypothetical. Utilities all over the country are lobbying to change rates for solar and battery customers by adding large fixed fees, eliminating net metering, delaying interconnections, and deliberately mismanaging incentive programs.
This anti-competitive behavior should be no surprise. Businesses don’t like competition; it hurts their profits. Homes and businesses can generate electricity for much less than their utility charges. So rather than find ways to be more efficient, competitive and environmentally friendly, utilities spend hundreds of millions of dollars suppressing competition from rooftop solar and battery storage and diminishing your solar and battery storage rights. To add insult to injury, the money they are spending was collected from ratepayers. You!
Unfortunately, the solar and storage industry doesn’t have the bankroll to counteract these utility lobbying efforts. But what we do have is public support: polling shows that 95% of people support solar and battery storage. The Solar Rights Alliance was founded to convert the support of millions of solar and storage enthusiasts into action that will change these anti-competitive, environmentally-hostile policies. The Solar Rights Alliance operates under the premise that everyone should have the right to generate his or her own power directly from the sun, and that no monopoly company or special interest should try to block or “own” the sun.
My guest on this week’s show is Dave Rosenfeld, the Executive Director of the Solar Rights Alliance. He’s spent his career building movements and institutions that expand freedom, liberty and justice — including National Public Radio, the Public Interest Research Group and the Public Interest Network. Please listen up to this week’s Energy Show as Dave and I discuss the issues that the Solar Rights Alliance fights for every day to protect your solar and battery storage rights.