Tag Archives: grid access charge

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.

Zombie Lie Moves Into The Tennessee Valley, Results In Unnecessary Fee

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What Happened:The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), in an action that seems antithetical to its entire mission, imposed a grid-access fee on its customers, aimed specifically at solar users because of the zombie lie of the cost-shift.

  • For a utility whose whole existence is owed to the idea that poor, rural people deserve low-cost electricity, the TVA’s grid-access fee seems to be the height of hypocrisy.
  • The TVA servers around 9 million people across seven states.
    • zombie lie

    The TVA USED to be about electricity for all. Now it’s about “electricity, but we’re going to charge you a random grid-access fee for it.”

    SolarWakeup’s View:  This flippin’ zombie lie is back again, this week popping its head up from the depths of hell in the Tennessee Valley.

    The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), for those who don’t know, was established as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program, in part to bring electricity to rural areas of seven states. These areas weren’t served before because it was considered too expensive for traditional utilities to string wires to many of these areas off the beaten path.

    It revolutionized the United States and gave rise the New South. But now, the TVA is relying on the zombie lie of the “cost shift” to penalize anyone on their grid that wants to install solar with a usurious “grid-access fee.”

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    TVA President Bill Johnson gave away the game when he started talking about how “more able” people are able to afford self-generation technologies like solar. As the Chattanooga Times Free Press quotes Johnson:

    “Some consumers, particularly the more able ones, can invest some solar panels or other resources, but they still rely on the valley-wide transmission system for backup power,” Johnson said. “The result is how we bill for electricity can be out of sync with the actual costs of getting electricity to some consumers.”

    How many times do we have to kill this damn lie about how solar consumers supposedly “shift” costs on to non-solar users? (Forever, Frank, you idiot – that’s the whole point of zombies…..)

    The argument goes like this: Retail-rate net metering, a program under which solar customers are reimbursed for the excess electricity they produce, pushes extra costs on to non-solar customers because solar customers aren’t paying for grid upkeep.

    What the utilities don’t want you to notice, of course, is that solar customers also relieve congestion on the grid during peak production times, which saves strain on the transmission and distribution lines. So while they may not be paying for upkeep directly, solar production saves wear and tear, which ultimately saves the utility money in the form of repair costs.

    You’re welcome.

    I should note here that while there is a minor cost-shift, a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indicates the shift only happens when a state passes the 10% mark for solar-electricity generation. And I should also note that even at more than 10%, the shift is so small you’d need the Berkeley Lab’s $27 million electron microscope to see it.

    As it always is, this maneuver is nothing more than a power and money grab by a rapacious utility – and it looks like the zombie lie going to succeed (again) in eating into the savings solar consumers should have from installing their systems.

    More:

    TVA adopting grid access fee in move to impose more fixed costs on power bills