A new poll finds that nearly four in five Colorado voters
(78%) support solar net metering, a successful renewable energy policy that
monopoly utility Xcel is attacking. Net metering gives rooftop solar
customers full retail credit for the excess energy they put back on the grid
for the utility to sell to their neighbors. The poll's respondents adamantly
reject Xcel's proposal to change this policy.
The bipartisan research team of Public Opinion Strategies
and Keating Research surveyed 400 voters throughout Colorado from November
17-19, 2013. Poll results show that statewide support for net
metering exceeds 70 percent in every region around the state and is greater
than 60 percent across all of the key voter groups in Colorado.
"Xcel wants to undermine fair and successful policies
that increase the use of clean, local energy in our state," said Meghan
Nutting, spokesperson for The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) and Director of
Policy and Electricity Markets for SolarCity. "Xcel's plan is the exact
wrong approach. It makes no sense to discourage individuals from
generating their own rooftop solar energy in a state that has 300 days of
sunshine a year."
Seventy-eight percent of Coloradans support net metering,
with nearly half (45 percent) strongly in support. Only 11 percent of the
state's electorate indicate opposition to the policy, with a mere 5 percent
strongly opposed, and another one-in-ten (11 percent) unsure of their views on
this policy.
The poll also finds that Coloradans aspires to have much
more rooftop solar in the future, and intend to benefit from net metering's
fair credit: A plurality of state voters (47 percent) say they do not have
rooftop solar but are interested in someday purchasing it. Among these
respondents, 80 percent oppose Xcel's proposal to change the net metering
policy. Even among the 46 percent of state residents who are not
interested in obtaining rooftop solar, more than two-thirds oppose this
proposed change to net metering.
A recent study shows that in Colorado, net metered
solar delivers an $11 million annual benefit to all Xcel
ratepayers. By delivering electricity locally at the source of
consumption, net metering reduces the need for expensive infrastructure power
lines, and over time reduces the need to purchase expensive and polluting fossil
fuels.
"Monopoly utilities across the country, like Xcel,
continue to fail repeatedly in their attempts to stop solar competition."
said Bryan Miller, TASC President and VP of Public Policy for Sunrun.
"In every net metering battle, from Idaho, to Louisiana, to California,
to Arizona, states have preserved net metering. The verdict of 2013
is that net metering is here to stay."
Xcel's attack on net metering follows several failed
attempts by utilities nationwide to suppress rooftop solar by undermining net
metering. The attacks follow the prescription of Washington, D.C. utility
industry group Edison Electric Institute (EEI). Earlier this year
EEI published a report warning against increasing threats to utility monopoly
powers from renewable energy. It serves as a playbook for attacks on net
metering to defend utility financial interests against competition and consumer
choice.
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