Dear editor:
On Thursday, Nov. 30, the Arkansas Public Service Commission (PSC) will weigh arguments from rooftop solar advocates against arguments by SWEPCO and Entergy on the amount private landowners should pay to send our excess solar power to the grid. The Arkansas Legislature has required the PSC to set a fee to compensate utilities for their cost, if any, for net-metering. Net-metering refers to credits solar homes receive for the electricity we add to the grid. These credits are deducted from our bills when we use more power than we consume.
My husband and I will benefit from "grandfathering in" the rate at which we are compensated, and we want newcomers to have the same rate. Additional costs for homeowners to install solar panels will discourage the growth of solar power production in Arkansas, with many detrimental effects.
Now that capturing the free energy that falls on everyone's property has become affordable -- cheaper than coal and competitive with gas -- energy companies view homeowner solar as direct competitors. Entergy already has a large solar installation in Stuttgart and has broken ground on one in Chicot County. SWEPCO also plans large-scale solar. These large arrays represent a lucrative future for utilities if they can continue to control the source of electricity in Arkansas.
If we net-metering customers are adding a cost to ratepayers, it would only be fair for us to compensate the utilities. But we are not playing on an even field: the utility cost calculations are so complicated, few outside the industry can understand and review them.
We challenge the utilities with benefits not included in their analysis. For example, we benefit society with no CO2, NOx, SOx, or mercury emissions. We employ young people who can learn a skill as installers -- many more jobs than in coal and gas. We save ratepayers who are not charged for our "power plant" or fuel. And, because all net-metering customers don't lose power at the same time, as do large-scale installations, we provide stability to the grid. Oh, and by the way, we do pay charges for maintaining the grid and taxes on our bill every month, just like other ratepayers, even if we produce more energy than we consume.
Please contact the PSC and urge them not to allow regulated monopolies to monopolize solar in Arkansas. Urge them to support this clean new industry, our right to harness the pure energy falling on our own property, and to recognize societal benefits in their cost calculations. You can do so at this link: https://act.audubon.org/onlineactions/5jmv4b32sEOKv-T5M_SekA2.
Denise Marion
Hot Springs
Editorial on 11/28/2017