SRP Board Kills Solar in SRP Territory

Contact  Mark Holohan

Cell:       602.684.6920

Email     Info@ariseia.org

Website www.ariseia.org

PHOENIX, AZ, FEBRUARY 26, 2015. In a 12-2 vote and amidst complaints from customers, lawsuit threats, and reports from several states and research groups proving there is no cost shift, the Salt River Project Board of Directors formally killed residential rooftop solar in its service territory.  The result is the killing of businesses, jobs, opportunity and economic growth that results from participating in one of the fastest growing industry sectors on the planet.  The meeting was full of complaints of a broken process, disenfranchised customers with no say in the public process, and a management run amok.

“To say we’re disappointed in the Board’s decision is an understatement,” said Mark Holohan, President of AriSEIA. “Instead of developing a strategy that allowed their ratepayers an opportunity to take advantage of Arizona’s greatest natural resource, they have arbitrarily placed the highest tax in the country on anyone who wants to go solar. The result will be the elimination of free energy choice in SRP territory and an angering of SRP customers who will likely move to replace the board with more thoughtful and forward-thinking members.”

According to SRP, home and business owners with rooftop solar systems use less power than those without, and therefore shift costs onto those who do not. This view ignores studies conducted by public utility commissions in California, Michigan, Nevada, New York, and Vermont, and studies from Lawrence Berkeley Labs, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the National Renewable Energy Lab, and others that come to exactly the opposite conclusion.

Court Rich, AriSEIA Vice President added, “Now we know what it looks like when utility executives get to set public policy unfettered and unchecked by any regulatory body and with no accountability.  This rubber stamping of a complicated and discriminatory rate program designed by utility executives to wipe out the rooftop solar industry is low point in the formerly proud history of SRP.  We already know that a $50 a month charge makes rooftop solar uneconomical so there is no mystery about the devastating impact this will have on solar jobs and Arizona’s reputation.”

AriSEIA is committed to educating and organizing solar customers and businesses in Arizona and being their voice for rational, fact-based energy policies in Arizona.

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