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Vote Solar Comes Out In Favor Of Tom Steyer’s Arizona Proposition

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Vote Solar announced today that it and the Arizona small business community have come out behind Proposition 127, a ballot initiative that would enshrine a 50% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) by 2030.

Arizona’s current RPS is 15%.

Prop 127, backed by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, has been mired in controversy as the state’s three largest utilities – Arizona Public Service (APS), Tucson Electric Power (TEP) and the Salt River Project (SRP) – have all funded political action committees to oppose the proposition. APS even brought a lawsuit challenging the signatures on the ballot petitions, a suit that was settled when a judge decided enough of the signatures were valid to keep the initiative in front of voters in November.

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In offering its support, Art Terrazas, Interior West director at the Vote Solar Action Fund said:

Arizona is one of the sunniest states in the nation, and the people of Arizona overwhelmingly support putting more of that plentiful sunshine to work supporting good jobs and healthier families. Proposition 127 gives Arizonans the opportunity to vote for that brighter energy future at the ballot this fall. “We are proud to be speaking up for Proposition 127 and a stronger solar powered Arizona with these local business leaders and community stakeholders across the state.

Arizona is the third pillar in Steyer’s three-state strategy. Under the leadership of state-level groups funded by him, Steyer already has an initiative on the ballot in Nevada, and his efforts in Michigan led to a negotiated settlement in which the state’s three largest utilities have pledged to eliminate coal from their portfolios by 2045 and increase their investments in renewable energy.

Rooftop solar installers, as you might imagine, support Prop 127 and are thrilled to have Vote Solar on their side.

“Thanks to innovation and the individual choices of thousands of consumers who have demanded new energy choices, solar energy has become one of the most affordable energy resources across the United States,” said Louis Woofenden with Tucson-based Net Zero Solar. “That’s especially true here in sunny Arizona. It just makes sense that Arizona should be using more of our plentiful and affordable renewable energy resources to power our homes, businesses and communities with a ‘yes’ vote on Proposition 127.”

APS-Backed Lawsuit Challenges 75% Of The Signatures For Arizona RPS Initiative

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Wow….The fight over the Arizona renewable portfolio standard (RPS) just got ugly. Arizonans for Affordable Energy, a political action committee backed by Arizona Public Service (APS) – the state’s largest utility – has alleged in a lawsuit that 75% of the signatures gathered to put a ballot initiative to raise the Arizona RPS are fraudulent.

The action comes as a competing proposal to raise the Arizona RPS, put forth by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) (which oversees APS), moves its way through the process.

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To review: The Arizona RPS ballot initiative is backed by progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, who is putting forth this effort in Nevada and was putting it together in Michigan before his group negotiated an agreement with the state’s utilities. It is pushing for a 50% RPS by 2030.

The ACC Arizona RPS proposal, which has the backing of the utility, would make the RPS 80% by 2050. The only difference between the two proposals is that the ACC proposal considers nuclear power as a clean energy source (it’s not), while the Steyer-backed proposal excludes nukes. Guess who owns a pair of nuclear generation facilities (you get three guesses, and the first two don’t count)?

Rachel Leingang of The Arizona Republic and Adrian Marsh at the Phoenix Business Journal both report that the lawsuit, filed last Thursday, alleges widespread fraud in the 480,464, including double-signings, illegal signature gatherers and people who are not registered to vote (being registered to vote is a requirement to sign the petition validly). As Leingang notes, fewer than 106,441 signatures are valid if what the APS-backed group says is true, which would leave them well short of the required number of signatures to get on the ballot.

Matthew Benson, a spokesman for the APS-backed group, offered the totally breathless, over-the-top statement to Marsh:

“Our painstaking review of every petition submitted by the initiative campaign has uncovered widespread forgery and deception and an utter disregard for Arizona law and elections procedures. This is truly fraud on a grand scale.”

I’d urge Benson to perhaps seek treatment for hysterics, because it sure seems like he’s suffering from a severe case. For measures like Steyer’s, it’s not unusual to see challenges made to the amount of signatures collected. What is unusual is that so high a number (75%? Really?) are challenged and for so many different reasons. My guess is the lawsuit is more harassment than anything else, and I’d be shocked if enough signatures are invalidated (some will be – that’s inevitable) to pull the initiative off the ballot in November. Steyer is no amateur.

More:

Arizonans for Affordable Electricity sues to block renewable energy initiative vote

APS-backed group sues over clean energy ballot measure, claims 300K invalid signatures

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.

Southeastern States Like Solar. In Other News, Water Is Wet

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened: Bloomberg looked into southeastern states like Georgia, South Carolina and Florida and discovered, by golly, those states LIKE solar now. In other news, water is wet.

According to the report, states have been reluctant to add solar because of the cost was too high.
Bloomberg looked at the recent explosion of solar installations in Florida, Virginia and South Carolina to reach its conclusion (and oddly left out North Carolina for some reason).

SolarWakeup’s View: OK, I know I should let Bloomberg off the hook for this one. After all, they don’t write about solar full time the way I do. But their simplistic analysis of the development of the southeastern states sudden interest in solar just isn’t really news.

Let’s be honest here: Although Bloomberg says the previous reluctance of utilities in places like Georgia, South Carolina and Florida to adopt solar was cost, it’s pretty clear the real reason was that they were afraid of losing their monopolies. After all, if solar is good for the utility, why wouldn’t it be good for its customers in southeastern states? Right, it would be good for them – and the utilities don’t want to cede that power to anyone.

Now price drops have certainly played some part, and if prices continue to fall (in conjunction with concurrent decreases in storage technology prices), you can be utilities in the Southeast will continue to add more solar to their portfolios.

Here’s one note of caution, however: While increasing utility-scale solar plants is a good idea in the short term, it will damage the long-term prospects for the rooftop, distributed-generation market. And it should be noted that while utilities are embracing solar more often for themselves, they are still trying to impose extra charges (penalties) for solar customers who control their own generation.

So while you can applaud the increasing amount of solar in southeastern states, don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security that solar is safe there, especially when the utilities feel their bottom lines are threatened.

More:

Sunny U.S. Southeast Is Finally Becoming a Hot Spot for Solar