PSC and Legislature debate solar power

Debates over solar energy at the Public Service Commission and in the Legislature this spring will affect jobs, the environment and your electric bill.

The rise of this industry in Louisiana has made it a target for electric companies and some politicians.

Can its critics sti e solar energy? Or is it an idea whose time has come?

I believe solar power should be part of a diversi ed energy future for our state. It’s clean, it’s not imported from overseas, and it creates jobs.

Most importantly, it can serve as a check against rising prices of the fossil fuels burned to make electricity, like natural gas and coal, and how that raises our electric bills.

The PSC and Legislature are debating incentives granted in the last 10 years for installation of home solar systems.

The PSC is asking how much utilities must pay solar owners for the power they generate in excess of what they use. This “net” excess power is registered on “net meters” and is credited to the customer at the same retail rate as the power bought from the company.

Utilities say the excess power should be priced at wholesale rather than retail rates. This would make solar users like industrial plants and independent power generators feeding large amounts of power into Louisiana electric grids. It would also recognize that solar customers stay connected to the grid for backup and should contribute to its upkeep.

The manager of a rural electric cooperative started the debate a year ago when he told the PSC his solar customers were subsidized by his nonsolar customers.

I asked how many customers he had and how many were on solar. The answers: 10,000 customers and ve on solar.

How big can the problem be if solar represents 5 hundredths of 1 percent of your customer count?

Other utilities said they were also concerned about the growth of solar and wanted the PSC to change our policy. We asked our staff to investigate.

We have now learned about solar’s reach in Louisiana. The 15 electric utilities regulated by the PSC have 1.9 million customers. Of that total, 2,579 have installed solar systems – that’s one-tenth of 1 percent.

Measure solar based on kilowatts generated and the number is the same.

Our 2,579 solar users collectively generate 16 megawatts of electricity. That can power 16 big-box retail stores but it only represents .1 percent of the total peak load of the 15 utilities.

Our staff has also calculated the money paid to solar customers by utilities for power above what solar would have brought at wholesale. In 2012 the sum was $216,692 – 11 cents per customer per year.

Solar may be growing but it is still a tiny contributor to electricity in Louisiana. Like solar dealers and customers in the debate I’m asking, “Why the rush to crack down?” Solar installers say talk about changing the PSC rules has slowed the growth of their industry and jeopardized 1,000 jobs. Customers that spent thousands of dollars for solar systems ask how we can change the rules they relied upon when they bought solar.

These arguments were made at last month’s PSC meeting. The proposed reduction in solar payments to wholesale will be voted on May 21.

The commission must also decide whether to remove a cap on new netmetering installations that is set at .5 percent of retail peak demand. Our staff asserts that Northeast Louisiana Electric Cooperative at Winnsboro has reached this threshold, raising the prospect that the PSC would prohibit all new solar installations statewide.

I believe consumers are best served by a variety of energy sources. In 2008 natural gas sold for recordhigh amounts and Entergy electric customers paid the price for the company’s heavy use of natural gas to make power. So when the company proposed a $1 billion project to convert a natural-gas power plant to petroleum coke, the commission supported it unanimously.

Months later the project ballooned in cost and the price of natural gas plummeted. Entergy canceled the project after spending more than $200 million.

If natural-gas prices escalate again and the PSC has killed solar power, what will we say?

The Legislature is debating its own solar issue. Louisiana offers a generous 50 percent tax credit, up to $12,500, to buy a home system. A legislative committee looking at tax breaks has identi ed this credit for “further information/action.”

Its opponents say solar power should “pay its own way,” but do other forms of energy pay their own way? The state solar tax credit has cost Louisiana $37 million since it was created in 2007. Another tax credit that legislators want to review is the $250 million granted last year to producers of natural gas from horizontal wells.

Bottom line: PSC members and legislators must determine whether Louisiana supports innovation and clean technology or yields to the utility companies and discourages solar power at this early stage of development.

Foster Campbell of Elm Grove is the North Louisiana representative on the Public Service Commission. He served in the Louisiana Senate from 1976 to 2002. He can be reached at 676-7464 or foster.campbell@la.gov.