These cost benefit of net metering reports are as useless as expert witnesses in civil litigation. Even though Nevada has already had a study and SolarCity went and get their own study, there is now a new study from the PUC. Of course, this time the data that came from the utility showed a different result. It showed that net metering created a cost shift. This is nonsense but it gives those that try to lobby against solar something to hold on to while they are citing ‘facts’. It is interesting that the reports have a swing of almost $50million from positive to negative. Nobody ends up reading these things because the headline number is all that people will use and it will be used. Just as ‘analysts’ write documents that only use the data that gets them to the headline that will sell the most copies, legislators that need a reason to be against solar will use this report.
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Don’t read it as a negative headline, this is a positive move to make sure the business is set up for the right path forward. SolarCity had to move their guidance based on market conditions and therefore ensured that their overhead was correctly aligned with the goal of nearly 1GW of homes this year. At the same time, the company announced a capital raise in the form of a bond at 6.5% for up to $124million which should give it enough capital to get to the Tesla acquisition. In Q2, SolarCity spent over $250million in operating expenses which is a staggering amount but take your business and extrapolate it to 150,000 homes in a calendar year and see what you think.
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It’s been a good week for solar policy around the Country. First in the State that always shows negative news, we have a victory by 4-1 vote in Arizona. Even though the vote was on a small utility territory, many expect the victory to be used as a precedent for some future proceedings. A New Mexico request was also turned down and yesterday we saw a nice move forward for solar in Colorado. What most participants are calling a win-win, over 20 parties signed on to the deal that will hopefully be approved by the PUC. Here you have it solar folks, taking a strong position for consumer choice and advocating hard for it yields results. All forms of solar should win in a way that helps consumers save money and use cleaner energy.
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Sometimes I get concerned, and I am sure you do too, that solar’s gains are going quickly and that before long the energy system will not need any more. Well that is just a notion that comes from the amazing growth we see in our sector because if you look at the energy chart in today’s top story and see the interactive version here, you will be amazed to see how little PV has actually done so far and how much more we are going to contribute. In the other top story we see what happens when you take a ballot to a gun fight (no pun intended). In Florida, some overzealous policy folks tried to bring a 3rd party solar ballot amendment to the people which costs tens of millions of dollars. The amendment failed to garner the votes and fundraising but also created a counterpunch. Utilities got together, created a crazy misleading entity and raised over $15million, to put their own constitutional amendment on the November ballot. Don’t get too excited about ballot amendments unless you are ready to write a big (read huge) check.
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