Marin Voice: California must continue to incentivize rooftop solar

The California Public Utilities Commission is now considering changing the rules that previously incentivized rooftop solar.

Schools, towns and cities, churches, businesses, residents and multi-unit dwellings, present and future, could have the price paid for their excess solar slashed. Many will have to redo their budgets because of this change. The CPUC may also add a monthly grid connectivity fee that would further financially harm these organizations and individuals, as well as devastate the rooftop solar market.

Rooftop solar remains crucial for California to meet its goal of 100% clean energy by 2045. Yet, leadership at utilities argue that solar-panel customers are not paying their fair share of infrastructure cost.

The price Californians pay for electricity has complex causes. Certainly, long distance transmission lines and the resulting fires have raised electricity rates. The lack of maintenance on these lines is a disgrace. So is the resulting loss of property, as well as life, from the fires they caused.

The power lines should have been buried at least a decade ago. Instead, the utility companies did nothing. They have not even employed low-cost options like wrapping existing power lines with a protective cover and swapping wooden utility poles for fire-resistant ones. Utility companies made sure their investors were adequately compensated, but failed to protect Californians.

Part of what has driven an increase in the cost of energy is corporate greed and malfeasance.

Rooftop solar has none of those risks and efficiently delivers clean energy to California. President Joe Biden, the first president to adequately address our climate crisis, has declared rooftop solar a top priority of his administration. So it makes no sense to stop adequately compensating customers for rooftop solar or drastically raising fees.

The drought, fires and extreme weather events bear witness to a climate emergency and we must act with the full force of our power.

How do we ensure that those who can’t afford solar do not end up footing the infrastructure bill for those who can? It is not by removing incentives for installing solar panels.

Solar panels on existing buildings do not require California to waste precious land space that utility companies would need to install solar farms. It does not require expensive infrastructure. It is lowering the cost of providing energy.

What we need is more rooftop solar for disadvantaged communities, which is just beginning to happen. In fact, 30,000 multi-unit dwellings will be installing rooftop solar this year. That is 150,000 low-income residents who will get subsidized solar energy.

We need to provide more subsidies for rooftop solar, not less. The idea that rooftop solar is responsible for the increase in energy prices is a clever public relations tool employed by the energy industry.

Climate change has permanently altered life in California as we know it. Every year the wildfires seem to get worse. Lives have been lost and the homes and businesses of so many have been destroyed.

Our beautiful national parks have to close because of wildfire risk. Summer vacations are shortened or canceled due to fires or the toxic smoke. We should remember that tourists on vacation are crucial to our economy. Last summer, San Francisco was blanketed in an orange haze. This summer it’s Lake Tahoe. The fires burning don’t act like previous ones because they go faster, higher and create their own tornadoes. One fire chief called them unstoppable.

Our inaction on climate change has created a dangerous world, especially for the firefighters. We are already paying the price so we cannot afford to falter.

California has to employ every tool from an ample supply of solutions: 100% clean energy; electrification of buildings and transportation; mitigating food and plastic waste; improving public transportation and bicycle infrastructure. Those are just some of the many ways we can cool the earth.

In a sane world, we do not destroy the rooftop solar market. California remains one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is on us to keep it that way.

Susannah Saunders, of San Anselmo, is a special education aide at Mill Valley Middle School.