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Arizona Rejects Tucson Electric Power’s Grid Access Fee For Solar Customers

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

It’s not often that I get to write something positive about the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC). For those of you who have followed my work over the years, we’ve had a…contentious relationships at best. Typically, I’m writing about something I view as skullduggery, and the commissoners (particularly on Twitter) have felt compelled to take on a writer from a little-known solar trade publication.

But today is not one of those days. Today, I’m taking my hat off to the ACC for rejecting a grid access charge proposed in 2015 by Tucson Electric Power (TEP) that would have penalized Arizona residents for installing solar energy.

It was another attempt to persuade the ACC that the “cost shift” is a thing, whereby non-solar customers are somehow damaged by solar customers because (say it with me now) “solar customers don’t pay their fair share of grid upkeep.”

Which, as we’ve discussed before, is nonsense. National studies have concluded that the cost shift only happens when 10% of all electricity in a state is generated by solar power, and that is currently only true in five states. And even IN those five states, the cost shift turns out to be fractions of a penny on the dollar.

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(If I seem a little testy, it’s because I have spent the better part of the last three years battling what I refer to as “the zombie lie” of the cost shift, and it wears on a fellow having to write a similar story for several different states because state stakeholders don’t seem to get that the cost shift is a complete myth.

But in any case…kudos to the ACC for seeing through the argument and rejecting the Grid Access Charge. With its ally Earthjustice, Vote Solar has been fighting this Grid Access Charge since 2015. In their release celebrating the decision, Briana Kobor, regulatory director at Vote Solar, had this to say:

Arizona’s families and businesses should be able to meet their own energy needs with the state’s plentiful sunshine if they so choose. Solar is an investment that supports local jobs, improves energy security and helps build a competitive new energy economy in the state. We commend the decision to avoid further penalizing solar customers with additional fees.

Since TEP was trying to bolster the cost-shift myth and make it uneconomical for people to install rooftop solar, I personally am taking the win. Congratulations to Vote Solar and Earthjustice for the win – and use tonight to celebrate. Then get back to the grindstone tomorrow. That cost-shift myth won’t bust itself.

APS Is Trying To Kill Steyer-Backed RPS Initiative

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: Arizona Public Service, the state’s largest utility, is again trying to stifle solar development in the state that has the most insolation in the country, because reasons.

The utility behemoth, which wields enormous power in the state’s politics, is trying to kill a ballot initiative backed by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer that would raise the state’s RPS to 50% by 2030.
To counter the measure, APS is pushing hard for a bill in the legislature that would make the penalty for not making the RPS goals almost laughably negligible – $1,000-$5000, a penalty APS could pay with the change they find in their couch cushions.
Arizona is the third known Steyer-backed RPS initiative that is being considered for November’s elections. The other two initiatives are in Michigan and Nevada.

SolarWakeup’s View: I was once at a meeting in Arizona where there was a panel discussing the relationship between utilities and the solar industry, which I missed because of a bad burrito the night before. And what I heard about it afterward made me so sorry I’d missed it.

Apparently, a representative from Arizona Public Service (APS) – the state’s largest utility – nearly got into a fistfight with another panelist who dared criticize their solar policies. There was most certainly shouting and (allegedly) some shoving, which gives you a sense of the lengths APS will go to protect its electricity-production monopoly from an ever-increasingly powerful solar industry.

I use that story as a backdrop to the current attempt by the utility to beat the state’s solar industry into submission. This time, they are trying to stop a ballot initiative that would amend the state’s constitution to increase the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 50% by 2030.

The initiative is the third known attempt by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer to get such an issue on the ballot (right now, attempts are being made in Michigan and Nevada). What’s interesting is that APS’ attempts to use a sledgehammer to kill a flea are happening before the ballot initiative even has enough signatures to get on the ballot – which may indicate how frightened they are that it just might pass.

The counter to the initiative that APS has concocted is a breathtaking display of the terrifying power they have in the state’s political structure and the shamelessness they have about wielding it so publicly. They have, through the legislature, introduced a bill that would limit the fines the state could levy on it for not making the modest RPS increase in time would be somewhere between $1,000 and $5,000.

Hell, those are fines that, in a pinch, I could pay (not that I’m offering). The idea that they would be an incentive for APS to increase its renewable energy production to meet the RPS requirements is laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

This is another attempt by APS to destroy the solar industry in Arizona before it can even get started. It cannot stand.

More:

Why APS Is Squashing The Clean Energy Vote (NBC 12 News)*

*Hearing Ryan Randazzo of The Arizona Republic compare APS to a lazy teenager is worth clicking on the link alone.

Natural Gas Plans Hit Snag For Arizona Utility

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: In a move the surprised many, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) told APS, the state’s largest utility, to get more of its electricity from renewables instead of natural gas.

The plans presented by APS submitted to the commission planned to add 5.3 GW of natural gas generation by 2032.
In contrast, APS planned to add only 183 MW of renewables to the portfolio.
The commissioners, who are sometimes accused of being too chummy with the utility they regulate, told APS unequivocally to stop fooling around and add more renewables to their generation portfolio.

SolarWakeup’s View: When I first read about the Arizona Corporation Commissioners’ decision to halt (at least temporarily) the Arizona Public Service (APS) plan to almost double its natural gas portfolio in favor of renewables, I thought it must have been a typo. Most of what I’ve read out of the state in recent years has centered on the sometimes cozy relationship the commissioners have with the state’s biggest utility.

After I realized Yann Brandt was not, in fact, punking me, I stood and cheered.

Instead of going along with APS’ 15-year resource plan, the commissioners instead told them to join the 21st century and draw up plans to acquire more renewable energy in its portfolio. And let’s be honest: With the highest insolation rates anywhere in the country, solar is just a natural fit for the state.

From E&E News and writer Benjamin Storrow comes the following note from an environmental activist:

“I don’t want to overstate national implications, but I do think it’s recognition that continued investment in natural gas is risky,” said Stacy Tellinghuisen, a senior climate policy analyst at Western Resource Advocates. “Commissioners are seeing clean energy is cheaper. They’re seeing that’s what the public wants. So I think this decision reflects all those factors.”

The battle over solar – particularly rooftop solar – has been bitter and brutal in The Grand Canyon state, with one commissioner saying that the fight over net metering (one that ended with significant changes being made that have made residential rooftop solar a harder sell) was something he never wished to be involved in again. Over time, many solar advocates in the state have worried aloud about what the state would do in terms of building a sufficient reneweable infrastructure or hold APS responsible.

It’s only one instance, this temporary natural gas moratorium, but maybe it signals a longer-term vision by the ACC that will place solar at the front and center of the clean energy infrastructure debate in Arizona once again.

More:

Regulators freeze new gas projects, demand renewables

Some states block plans for new power plants

The Trump Energy Cabinet and the Fight in Arizona

Lucy Mason – Arizona SEIA’s Executive Director and Former Republican State Legislator

Yann is joined by AriSEIA’s Lucy Mason. Lucy is the executive director of Arizona’s State Chapter, a republican and former Chair of the Water and Energy Committee in the State House of Representatives in Arizona.

Arizona has been the battleground for solar net metering for many years and Lucy has recently joined a settlement. We talk about how solar can speak to republicans and the mutual benefits to both sides. This is the last in the conversations with State Chapter directors.

Make sure to check out SolarWakeup Live! in Boston on 10/31 and D.C. on 12/6. Tickets available but selling fast.

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