Rooftop solar works, but whether it makes financial sense to a homeowner depends largely on a homeowner’s electric utility provider.  Many utility providers offer fair solar rate plans which greatly lower monthly bills.  For example, NV Energy solar customers who generate more electricity than they use may have a monthly electric bill of just over $13. NV Energy wins, the homeowners win, the solar businesses win, and the environment wins.  

While SRP has four solar rate plans, none makes attaining an ROI on rooftop solar easy.  For many installations, the ROI is 10-20 years, and in some cases it is never.  To start with, an SRP customer who installs solar will be forced onto a solar plan with their monthly service charge raised to $32.44 from $20. Two of the solar rate plans include an expensive demand fee. According to SRP, my estimated electric bill after adding rooftop solar would exceed $1000 per year even if I were to generate power equivalent to 100% of my required usage (over producing during the day and getting back energy from the grid at night) – that’s an unreasonably high price for trading kWhs with SRP.  SRP’s solar rate plans ensure that SRP and not the homeowner benefits from the financial gains afforded by solar. With these unfavorable solar rate plans, SRP has squelched the free market growth of rooftop solar within its service territory. (Driscoll, 2020)

NV Energy is an investor-owned utility that not only must serve its customers but must answer its shareholders.  It is owned by Berkshire Hathaway which has a proven history of growing wealth.  SRP is a public power utility that not only enjoys paying minimal taxes but does not answer to investors. Why can’t SRP, which calls itself a “community-based, not-for-profit organization”, provide fair rates to all its customers including its solar customers?  

Amongst power utilities (there are three main categories: public power utilities, investor-owned utilities, and co-ops) SRP holds the top spot in generating more electricity than any other public power utility. (APPA, 2023). While many utilities have made commitments to no new fossil fuel plants, SRP is purposefully expanding its fleet of gas-powered plants. SRP’s shortsighted decisions will force its 1.13 million customers to pay for these large gas plant expenditures for years to come.  Other utilities like NV Energy give their customers the opportunity to generate their own electricity and benefit financially from rooftop solar; these utilities allow customers to do their part in helping the environment.  

The NV Energy bill data is from a homeowner whose 7.29 kw solar system cost $22,104. With the 30% federal tax credit, the final system cost will decrease to $15,473 with an anticipated payoff in 7.5 years.  This Las Vegas home is left at 78 degrees during work hours and set to 75 degrees during home hours. NV Energy’s commitment to serving its customers with affordable energy and its environmentally conscientious commitment to 100% renewable energy in the future enable this homeowner along with many others help the environment while paying an affordable monthly electric bill of just over $13.  

As decisions makers for one of the largest public power utilities in the nation, you wield a great deal of power over the customers in your monopoly territory.  Won’t you please consider the state of the earth and the consensus of the world scientific community that steps need to be taken to address human-induced climate change?  Have you seen footage of the devastation in Lahaina?  Have you heard about the ocean temperatures around Florida exceeding 101 degrees? Have you seen the arms sadly dropping off our Arizona saguaros?   If you provide a fair solar rate plan, solar installations will increase, the burden on the grid will be reduced, and greenhouse gas emissions will decrease. You can make a difference. If you don’t believe climate change is a threat or that any action is needed for mitigation, can you view this from a fair pricing perspective and allow your solar customers to keep the financial savings afforded by solar with a fair solar price plan?

You, the SRP board and management, have the power to partner with your customers to make a significant positive impact on the environment.  Please take action for the greater good. Please choose the planet and your customers over profit.  Please allow SRP homeowners to fairly access solar and collectively reduce the carbon footprint being generated by SRP.  

Provide a rate plan that allows homeowners access to rooftop solar without penalty.

Notes:

-         Arizona utilities APS and TEP also offer favorable solar rate plans.  I had access to more comprehensive NV Energy data, so I used that.

-         The claim that solar customers unfairly cause a cost-shift to non-solar customers is wrong. (CALSSA, 2021) If a person were to pay a lower electricity bill by raising the thermostat in their home and by drying their clothes outside, would that be unfair to others?  Similarly if that same person were to lower their electricity bill by using solar to generate electricity to cool their home and dry their clothing, that would not be unfair to a customer who does not use solar.  Also, I’ve directly asked several of my neighbors if they would begrudge a neighbor who could have a significantly lower utility bill because of solar – they all said no

-         SRP has plenty to spend on lawyers/lobbyists and settlements:

o   In 2022 the SRP Coolidge Gas Expansion project was rejected by the ACC (Holmes, 2022).   A year later, SRP legal offered a multi-million dollar settlement to the Randolf community and got the ACC to approve the harmful Coolidge fossil fuel expansion (Dominguez, 2023). 

o   In 2022 with the Ellis vs SRP antitrust lawsuit, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that there was “sufficient evidence that could show the price structure was designed to deter the competitive threat of solar energy systems and to force consumers to exclusively purchase electricity from SRP.” (Lewis, 2022). However, the lawsuit was made moot with clever SRP lobbying at the AZ legislature in the passage of HB2101/SB1631 which eliminates electric competition. (Stanton, 2022).

o   In 2015, SolarCity filed an antitrust lawsuit against SRP (Simple Investment Ideas, 2015) which was headed for the US Supreme Court by 2017.  However SRP legal got Solar City to settle in 2018 without addressing the major point of discriminatory solar customer rates. (van Blokland, 2018).

-         SRP has a high greenhouse gas emitting portfolio which it masterfully markets as clean. (Mendez, 2023). It buries its irresponsible performance with its own cleverly contrived “sustainability” metric.  It creates its sustainable energy numbers by heavily padding renewable energy generation with real and guesstimated energy efficiency numbers. SRP conflates “sustainable” with “renewable” and succeeds in deceiving the public into believing it is a responsible environmental steward. 

-         Unbeknownst to most SRP electric customers, a portion of their bills is used to heavily subsidize SRP water operation. (SRP, 2023). 

 

Thank you very much to those of you who read this petition and sign it. I hope together we can convince those in power to make a positive change that will benefit the community, the environment, and our wallets too. 

 
Sources:

Driscoll, W (2020).  Discriminatory rooftop solar charges may violate antitrust law. PV Magazine. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/07/13/discriminatory-rooftop-solar-charges-may-violate-antitrust-law/

APPA (2023). 2023 Public Power Statistical Report, p. 19. https://www.publicpower.org/resource/public-power-statistical-report 

California Solar & Storage Association (2021, June 7).  Debunking the “Cost-Shift” Debate. https://calssa.org/blog/2021/6/5/debunking-the-cost-shift-debate

Holmes, C (2022, April 12). ACC stuns with rejection of SRP Coolidge gas plant expansion. ABC15. https://www.abc15.com/news/state/acc-stuns-with-rejection-of-srp-coolidge-gas-plant-expansion

Dominguez, A (2023, June 21). ACC Approves SRP Gas Plant Expansion and APS Settlement Deal in Decisions that are Bad for Ratepayers and Climate. Sierra Club Grand Canyon. https://www.sierraclub.org/arizona/blog/2023/06/acc-approves-srp-gas-plant-expansion-and-aps-settlement-deal-decisions-are-bad

Lewis, M (2022, February 1). Arizona utility just lost in appeals court price gouging rooftop solar customers.  Electrek.co. https://electrek.co/2022/02/01/an-arizona-utility-just-lost-in-appeals-court-for-price-gouging-rooftop-solar-customers/

Stanton, S (2022, April 28).  Utilities win passage of anti-competition bill. Arizona Capitol Times. https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2022/04/28/utilities-win-passage-of-anti-competition-bill/

Simple Investment Ideas (2015, April 07). SolarCity – Lawsuit Against SRP Has Large Implications. Seeking Alpha. https://seekingalpha.com/article/3055446-solarcity-lawsuit-against-srp-has-large-implications

van Blokland, H (2018, March 21). Salt River Project, SolarCity Settle Lawsuit Without Addressing Customer Rates.  KJZZ.org https://kjzz.org/content/624387/salt-river-project-solarcity-settle-lawsuit-without-addressing-customer-rates

Mendez, J and A Salman (2023, June 23). SRP must transition to clean, renewable energy now. AZ Capitol Times. https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2023/06/23/srp-must-transition-to-clean-renewable-energy-now/

SRP (2023).  2023 Annual Report. p.9. https://www.srpnet.com/assets/srpnet/pdf/about/2023-annual-report.pdf (please look at the last row in the table on page 9 - over $60 million this year alone in water subsidies)  

Petition to:  Salt River Project District Board Members: David Rousseau (President), John Hoopes (Vice President), Christopher Dobson (Vice-President), Kevin J. Johnson, Paul E. Rovey, Mario J. Herrera, Leslie C. Williams, Stephen H. Williams, John "Jack" M. White Jr., Keith B. Woods, Randy Miller, Robert C. Arnett, Mark V. Pace, Anda G. McAfee, Krista H. O'Brien, Nicholas R. Brown, Kathy L. Mohr-Almeida.  SRP Executive Managers:  Jim Pratt, General Manager & Chief Executive Officer; Alaina Chabrier, Associate General Manager & Chief Communications Executive; John Coggins, Associate General Manager & Chief Power System Executive; Aidan McSheffrey, Associate General Manager & Chief Financial Executive; Leslie Meyers, Associate General Manager & Chief Water Resources & Services Executive; Geri Mingura, Associate General Manager & Chief Human Resources Executive; Michael O'Connor, Associate General Manager & Chief Legal Executive; Bobby Olsen, Associate General Manager & Chief Planning, Strategy & Sustainability Executive; Rob Taylor, Associate General Manager & Chief Public Affairs & Corporate Services Executive; John Felty, Corporate Secretary; Brian Koch, Corporate Treasurer