Below is an alert sent to North Carolina legislators on June 7, 2017.
North Carolina House Bill 589, Competitive Energy Solutions for NC, is not about “renewable” energy and despite their rhetoric, it is neither competitive nor a solution. One of the most troubling aspects is an entirely new program, the Solar Rebate Program on page 17 of the bill. This program is very similar to the expired tax credits NC was offering, except in this case instead of the taxpayer paying for them, it will be utility customers paying through their electric bills.
Other provisions in the bill include: lifting the state’s ban on third-party leasing, promoting net metering, shortening the terms of contracts between utilities and “renewable” energy providers, and introducing a competitive bidding process for utilities soliciting proposals from “renewable” facility developers.
While we can acknowledge some aspects of the bill, like competitive bidding and shortening contract terms, may be beneficial to ratepayers, the troubling nature of the rebate program in particular creates concern enough for Civitas Action to oppose this bill.
Civitas Action opposes government mandates and subsidies in any industry, especially in the energy industry which affects all businesses and citizens across the state. We urge our legislators to either kill this bill or take prudent and reasonable action and turn it into a study bill to make sure they get the legislation right.
Civitas Action fully intends to grade any votes taken on House Bill 589 in its 2017 Civitas Action Conservative Effectiveness Ranking, and the grades will be updated to the website within one or two business days following the vote.
The rankings can be found at www.civitasaction.org.
Wait folks – This bill also extends the erroneously high “avoided cost” rate that Duke testified was the cause of ratepayers being overcharged for solar already purchased by $1,000,000,000 (that’s a billion for you english majors). Even though Duke has petitioned the Utilities Commission with information demonstrating the avoided cost should be roughly half of this value, the bill circumvents the Commission and forces the use of the higher value for an additional 30 months! So instead of ending the over payments – this bill extends it for 30 months.
When will solar graft end?
Would you buy something that works 30 – 40 % of the time?
Solar panel capacity factors are closer to 19-20% in NC. And we are already on the hook for more than $2 billion in tax credits that have already been sold to BCBS, BofA, Duke and others that we will pay for.