Utility commissioners in Arizona will decide the fate of
rooftop solar incentives this week, in what has become the biggest fight over
renewable energy policy in the country. A two-day hearing on the issue at the
Arizona Corporation Commissionbegan Wednesday.
The Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility, is
asking the commission to change the current policy, which allows homes and
businesses with their own solar power systems to sell any excess energy they
generate back to the grid. That policy, known as net metering, was first put in
place in 2009. The utility argues that customers with rooftop solar aren't
paying their fair share to maintain the grid, and has proposed policy changes
that would increase prices for those with solar systems. But local solar
advocates have accused the utility of trying to kill the state's burgeoning
solar industry, and have launched a counter-campaign.
As The Huffington Post has previously reported, the fight got
interesting when the utility revealed that it had been secretly funding
anti-solar ads produced by a national conservative group. After a commissioner asked the company and other groups involved in the
net metering debate to disclose how much money they were spending on the issue,
APS disclosed that it had spent $3.7 million on PR work.
The solar lobby disclosed that it was spending nearly half a million dollars on
fighting the proposed changes.
Meanwhile, the Edison Electric Institute, a national group
that represents utilities, has jumped in the fight, spending $520,000 on a
10-day television ad campaign in support of APS, the Arizona Republic reported.
Hundreds of solar supporters came to rally outside the hearing on Wednesday, and
dozens testified. The commission is expected to decide Thursday whether to
change the policy.
Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have some
manner of net metering policy in place, which has helped spur the growth of solar across the country. Both solar
proponents and utilities elsewhere are watching Arizona as a test case for the
issue, as a handful of other states have also considered
changes to similar policies this year.
And as this fight has shown, utilities are willing to put big bucks behind efforts
to change them.
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