While the government still forces NV Energy to buy excess electricity it neither needs nor wants from home-brewed rooftop solar generators, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC) decided in December that NV Energy will now only have to pay the wholesale price for the rooftop solar-generated power rather than the retail price.
This means the 98 percent will no longer be paying the higher cost for rooftop solar-generated home-brewed electricity.
Of course, rooftop solar system owners have now discovered the fine print in the agreements they signed with the solar companies and they ain’t happy.
But their anger at NV Energy and the PUC is misdirected.
The rooftop solar industry knew all along that all good things come to an end. They just wanted to put it off as long as they could to fatten their profits as much as possible before the bottom fell out.
That explains the rhetoric and media firestorm the rooftop solar industry created over the past month in the hope of getting the PUC to delay implementation of its decision to pull the plug on the existing “net metering” rate scheme.
But as PUC Chairman Paul Thomsen, “Darth Vader” to rooftop solar owners, explained at the hearing on January 13th…
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable to try to protect 98 percent of residents in this state who don’t have net metering on their roofs.”
Nor should it.
The 2 percent who bought into the taxpayer/ratepayer subsidy scam, brought to them by feckless politicians, have just learned an important lesson known well by limited-government conservatives…
A government powerful enough to give you anything you want is powerful enough to take away everything you have.
So the bottom line is this…
If you believe in the global warming propaganda and want to “do something” about it, then buy a rooftop solar system and salve your conscience on your own dime, not the taxpayers.
And if your purpose for buying a rooftop solar system was a cheaper electricity bill, you still don’t have to buy electricity from NV Energy during the day (as long as the sun is out!).
It’s just that the credit you receive for your excess home-brewed electricity during the day will be at the wholesale, not retail rate, for NV Energy’s electricity that you still need to buy at night.
Now…
If that doesn’t pencil out so that the savings offset the cost of the system you bought from the rooftop solar company, don’t blame NV Energy, the PUC or Nevada’s taxpayers.
Blame the rooftop solar salesman who sold you this bill of goods knowing full well that change was in the air.
And may the Force be with you.
(Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com)
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