By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
SolarWakeup sat down with Dave Rosenfeld of the Solar Rights Alliance to discuss how the group came to be, what their goals are this year and where they expect to be in the year ahead.
SolarWakeup (SWup): Tell us why you decided to found the Solar Rights Alliance.
Dave Rosenfeld: Our Board of Directors and the leadership of the CA Solar & Storage Association should get the credit for founding the organization and seeding it with the resources to get started. I was brought in after they did that initial lift.
Solar Rights Alliance was started because California’s one million solar users are being left out of important decisions that affect everyone’s right to make and store their own solar energy.
California rooftop solar is under a sustained attack by utilities trying to make solar harder and more expensive, instead of easier and cheaper. That’s because when people and businesses go solar, it threatens the utility monopoly. Also, local red tape too often also stifles people’s ability to choose solar.
Solar users are an army of activists waiting to be mobilized to protect their investment, and ensure others have the chance to go solar. But no one was reaching out to solar users en masse, providing them with information about what the politicians, regulators and utilities are up to, and giving them avenues to make their voice heard.
There are plenty of experts doing policy and “inside game” work. But someone needs to talk to the people and get them involved, too. That’s what we do.
SWup: You’ve been compared to the National Rifle Association. Are you comfortable with this analogy?
Dave Rosenfeld: In terms of the abstract idea of a people-powered organization focused on defending the rights and interests of its members and effective at doing so, yes. In terms of certain elements of the NRA’s organizational model that has made them successful, yes. But we are a solar group, not a gun group, and have no position about the substance of NRA’s positions – so I hope the analogy doesn’t get misunderstood.
SWup: What does the NRA do right in terms of activating its members?
Dave Rosenfeld: First, they are unflinchingly focused on their members and mission. You don’t have to agree with their mission, but you can admire how member-focused they are. Second, they talk to their members. A lot. They provide information and education, every day, through many channels. Some of it is politics, a lot of it is just about safety, hunting, sport shooting, and other aspects of gun ownership. That’s key because they’re building a long-term relationship with their members that leads to trust and a greater willingness to get politically active. Three, they keep things simple. You could argue they keep things too simple, but the fact is that they break political decisions down to a level that most people can understand, which most people in politics don’t do. Finally, they give people numerous ways to get politically active from the simple email action all the way to canvassing for candidates.
SWup: How many members do you have currently? How many do you want to have?
Dave Rosenfeld: We are within striking distance of 7,000 members. Our goal is 100,000 members by 2020. It is free to join the Solar Rights Alliance – we want it to be as easy as possible for solar users to join their voices together with other solar users. You can join at www.solarrights.org.
SWup: What scale do you have to reach to become that politically powerful? What are your plans to get there?
Dave Rosenfeld: That’s why our goal is 100,000 members. That’s about 10% of all solar users, and the numbers we need in order to move the needle in Sacramento. We get there by borrowing a concept from NRA. When you buy a gun, you become an NRA member. Similarly, when you install solar, you become a Solar Rights Alliance Member. It’s a little more complex than that, but the concept is correct. To operationalize that concept, we’re working with solar companies of all sizes, including but not limited to: Sunrun, Vivint Solar, Mosaic, SunPower, ENGIE, Freedom Forever, Solar Technologies, Run on Sun, Aztec Solar, Corda Solar, Capital City Solar and more to encourage their customers to join the Solar Rights Alliance. Some companies are emailing their customers; others are including an optional Solar Rights Alliance membership in the installation. This is our core strategy. If we can get more resources, we also plan to try other ways to recruit solar users – door-to-door canvassing, huge social media campaigns, phone bank. This is a huge opportunity to civically engage solar users.
SWup: We’ve been told you were particularly successful with a project in California this summer. Can you tell us what the project was and why it was so successful?
Dave Rosenfeld: There were a few success points, but my favorite one is this:
It was late September. SB 700 had been sitting on the Governor’s desk for a month, and we were hearing reports that he was being lobbied to veto the bill. You’ll recall SB700 will help people avoid expensive evening electricity rate hikes by making it easier to store their extra solar energy at home through a battery – rather than pay the utility for that evening electricity. Our members had already done a lot to pass the bill through the legislature, and a few had even traveled up to Sacramento to personally lobby their lawmakers. When we heard that Governor was being asked to veto SB700, we alerted our membership. In 24 hours over 500 members had flooded the Governor’s office with emails asking him to sign the bill. We then did a second ask for people to call his office; about two dozen followed suit. The Governor signed the bill that week.
Now imagine what kind of voice solar users can have when we have 100,000 members!
SWup: Project into the future a year. What do you want people like me writing and saying about the SRA in a year’s time?
Dave Rosenfeld: I hope you can say that in 2019, the Solar Rights Alliance worked to effectively mobilize over 100,000 solar users to defend net metering from attack at the PUC, pass a Solar Bill of Rights through the legislature, and help reduce permitting red tape in several municipalities — and throughout emerged as a good source of unbiased information for every California solar user.