By Inside Climate News
In a hearing last month in Arizona, an expert witness for the state’s largest utility said he agrees with the idea that utilities oppose rooftop solar because it is a threat to their profits.
If ever there was an occasion for a “record scratch” sound effect to be played at a regulatory hearing, this was it.
The comment was stunning because it’s something renewable energy advocates have long been saying but that utilities have danced around.
For me, the statement and the reaction to it shows a need to address a related question: How can the regulatory system be reformed so that the economic interests of utilities can coexist with the need to build lots of rooftop solar and other customer-owned power generation?
The August 25 hearing before state regulators was about a rate increase proposal by the utility, Arizona Public Service. APS called Roger Morin to testify in favor of raising rates. Morin is a consultant who has written about the finances of regulated companies and has spent decades traveling the country to testify on behalf of utilities in cases like the one in Arizona. “Utilities like to misdirect and set up counter-narratives to try to plausibly argue they are not fighting their own customers,” but “it’s all about the money.”
He was being cross-examined by Court Rich, an attorney who represents solar companies. Rich used the word “prosumer,” which in this context meant consumers who have their own electricity generation systems.
