By Jonathan Thompson | High Country News
There may be no better place on the planet to generate solar electricity than Arizona. The entire state shows up as a big red stain on those solar radiation maps, and there are plenty of places to put solar panels, from fallow alfalfa fields to parking lots and canals, where photovoltaic arrays can generate power and provide shade from the brutal sun. And then there are all those rooftops, nearly three million in the state, that are just begging to be adorned with miniature solar power plants.
It’s all added up to put Arizona in second place in the nation for installed solar capacity — 1079 megawatts and growing, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Many of those megawatts are generated with small, rooftop systems. Arizona Public Service, the state’s biggest utility, says 24,000 of its customers have rooftop solar, thanks both to direct cash incentives for installing solar, and to the state’s net metering program, which requires APS to pay customers for power generated by residential renewable systems.
Now, perhaps emboldened by the recent Republican takeover of the Arizona Corporation Commission — the body that regulates net metering and renewable portfolio standards — APS has launched an effort to destroy or diminish net metering, saying it costs non-solar ratepayers too much. Predictably, the move has angered renewable energy advocates and Arizona’s burgeoning solar industry. But the utility may not have anticipated the strong backlash from prominent Republicans, which will put the ACC in a tight spot when it has to make a ruling on the proposal.
If you’d like to discuss energy issues, contact Court Rich, Co-Chair of Rose Law Group’s Renewable Energy Department at crich@roselawgroup.com
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