I don't understand why the California legislature gave in to PG&E to make solar less attractive to homeowners. If we are really interested in clean free energy there's nothing better. We put in solar about 10 years ago and our electric bill is zero! A 3200 square foot house, 5 computers, 3 TVs and a zero bill. Furthermore, our trueup showed that we had excess energy of over $600. I would like to see that law rescinded and everything done to make solar attractive to homeowners. Manufacture and installation of solar panels produced good jobs--an industry that is much weakened by this badly considered law. With increasing demand of data centers and the need to keep an old nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon on-line to meet our clean energy needs, we have destroyed a safer more economical way of producing much-needed electricity,
Solar is subsidized by electric rate payers. The subsidy was getting onerous and making electricity noticeably more expensive. Many solar owners happen to be wealthier too.
Elizabeth is right on this. Ive followed this issue carefully. Everyone with rooftop solar gets regular utility power through the grid at night, even more so at winter when solar production is low. Thus they use the grid. None solar customers like myself pay about 20 cents/kWh for this "transmission and distribution". However those who can zero out their electric bill obviously pay nothing to use the grid. This means those without rooftop solar have in fact been subsidizing those with it. So yes it has caused electric bills for non-solar customers to rise. (I think by a non-trivial amount but I can't recall how much) The grid costs get peanut buttered across everyone else. Those who just get their bill reduced are likewise being subsidized but not as much. This has led to the recent NEM debates in the CPUC. Those who installed solar before April 2024 were covered under the old NEM 1 & 2 plans where they could zero out their electric bills. The utilities and the CPUC judged this was unfair because it forced everyone without solar to subsidize those with solar. The debates started. At first the CPUC decided to terminate the benefits of NEM 1 &2 for those who installed rooftop solar over 10 years ago, by which time it should have paid for itself. They thought that was fair. But the rooftop industry and existing customers protested so the CPUC backed off and decided that NEM 1 &2 benefits - and the subsidy- will continue. However those installing solar after April 2024 now fall under NEM 3.0 where excess solar is only worth about 3 cents/kWh rather than the 40 or 50 c/kWh its worth under NEM 1 &2. That's severely diminished the financial attractiveness of new rooftop solar and put many solar companies out of business. Trumps repeal of the FTC has made things even worse. That's the simple explanation.
We pay approximately $11/month to connect to the grid. But we produce so much electricity it zeroes out that charge so the actual bill appears to be zero.
My point is if California is really interested in clean power there are thousands and thousands of rooftops which could carry solar panels, far more beneficial ecologically than planting solar panels on thousands of acres of open land which is what has been happening. So it’s better for everyone if the state came up with a solution that would eliminate the penalty for those without solar. The smartest way,of course, would be to get everyone on solar.
Data centers have a ton of environmental concerns, one of which is electricity demand. Another is cooling water. Is there a plan to incentivize data centers to install their own solar collectors as part of their designs, and to use the latest technology to minimize water consumption? Stockton and other places already have water shortages.
I agree with all of these moves except SB 79, because SB 79 is an ineffective tool to address housing and because it is a massive corrupting influence of developer money on California politics. It would be more cost-effective to incentivize moving jobs to where new housing can be built more cheaply and with adequate infrastructure. Companies can relocate jobs for less cost than tearing up neighborhoods under the delusion that people will walk to bad transit that doesn't get them to where they need to go in any practical amount of time. For the most part they will drive. Vitalizing Central Valley cities would have a faster effect on the housing supply while improving rather than degrading our overall quality of life.
We’re all entitled to an opinion, Tom. It would be nice if it were developed more objectively.
SB 79 is another Scott Wiener handout to developers. The industry has absolutely no interest in solving California’s housing problem. That’s because the state doesn’t have a housing problem. It has an affordable housing problem, and developers don’t consider that a profitable endeavor.
That’s because the State did nothing to provide incentives. It didn’t provide tax credits to builders. It didn’t allocate funding for municipalities to offset the increased infrastructure costs to accommodate thousands or tens of thousands of new residents: sanitation, fire and police protection, emergency services, education, road maintenance, healthcare and, most of all, water. When the State asks current residents to curtail their consumption of water and power, where are those commodities coming from to meet the needs of new residents?
New construction is not going up near mass transit. SB 79 permits building up to 1.5 miles from a rail or bus line. And only a meager 10-15% of those units need to be considered affordable. According to the first bill that, purportedly, encouraged the building of budget-friendly units — SB 330 — the target residents were “very low, low, and moderate income” individuals. The variances in SB 330 and succeeding legislation, however, handed out density bonuses in exchange for that same ineffective 10-15% ratio of affordable-to-market-rate units.
If Cap-and-Invest were legitimate, rooftop solar homes would still be compensated fairly. What began as a retail number — credit in the same amount per kilowatt hour that the electric utilities billed to customers — is now one-tenth of that. It is, in other words, State-approved theft. SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E can pay out 3¢ now, rather than 30, yet bill solar customers the higher rate when they consume power after dark. It is thoroughly inequitable and ignores the contribution that solar customers make, allowing the utilities to use existing plants to provide more power to more non-solar customers without massive increases in capital expenditures for new generation facilities.
CEQA is already being abused. Developers are skirting environmental quality concerns by supporting the lie that the state needs new housing, in general; not affordable housing, in particular.
Whether you consider your outlook Libertarian or capitulated Democrat or enlightened Republican, it’s still politics as Twain described it: “We have the best government that money can buy.” You’re not describing negotiation and compromise that primarily help California’s citizens. You’re supporting deals that let office holders convince industry to continue to donate to their election campaigns.
I've been wondering where you've been, Mr. Steyer. I used to get notices from you, and I did write to subscribe to your emails, but I've gotten nothing until now. I'm happy to see that you are still engaged in helping the environment, and I do agree that we can do this in increments. However, time is of the essence, and I'd like to see you do whatever you can to facilitate the passing of these measures.
Tom, thank you for writing this. I have to say you are right that it's hard to be a California family today. We are struggling with all the things you mentioned. Ŵhy is PGE and landlords trying to get rich off of us? Soon California will continue to loose people because native Californians are struggling too. I was raised here from the 70s and have seen the devastating changes. From where does our help come?
People, communities and companies who achieve frugality with energy are HEROES! They are the ones building a better society, reducing green house gas emissions and are process innovators. Let's celebrate people who do more with less.
Energy frugality is a choice everyone has right now.
Under the label Remote Solar Advocates I've developed a potential new way for homeowners and renters to obtain solar power that is far less expensive than rooftop solar because it allows them to purchase panels in large utility-scale solar farms which generate power 6 times less expensively than rooftop solar. For instance my financial model shows that a remote-solar system capable of generating as much power that a typical home uses (6400 kWh/year) would only cost about $4800. That would be paid back in about 4 years thru reduced electric bills giving the customer an ROI of about 24%/year on that $4800 investment. I stress that remote-solar is fundamentally different than community solar. I've formally asked the CPUC to consider this idea under docket A22-05-022 as a way to increase renewables, lower electric bills, stimulate EV sales and potentially make new homes less expensive. But its not clear the CPUC will respond favorably since the utility companies are opposed to this new competition. I'm doing this to help fight climate change but as just one individual I can't lobby effectively. Mr. Steyer, I've tried to send you detailed whitepapers on this but don't have your email address. Could you send it to me at "remotesolaradvocates@gmail.com"? --Rich Harkness, BSEE, PhD, author of a book on global warming, retired strategic and new business planner living in Santa Rosa.
I would really like to see more transit/subway lines built around densely populated areas bcz it's true that living near transit lines eliminates the need for driving, reduces pollution, and allows people to live in more affordable areas yet still be able to catch a subway or bus to work downtown. I understand zoning laws make it hard for developers to build within city limits w/scarce land and/or very expensive land-costs, so building farther out is a solution (to provide affordable housing) albeit with the caveat as mentioned, that we need better public transportation-planning to go along with the build-outs to such areas.
Marsha, you are one of the fortunate folks who installed solar before the rules changed. Good move on your part. I hope it was inspired as a way to help fight climate change. I'm a great fan of solar but when I found it costs six times more (per kWh) to generate solar power using rooftop arrays than in utility-scale solar farms I decided to see how we could take advantage of that. What resulted was a potential new way that homeowners and renters could obtain solar that was far less expensive than rooftop. I called it "remote-solar" because your panels would be located in a remote solar farm not on your roof. Turns out the financials of remote-solar are very attractive. A remote-solar system costing $4800 would generate as much power as a $34,000 rooftop system. Yes the remote-solar customer would pay to use the grid to -figuratively speaking- transport the electricity from the solar farm to his/her home, but the customers elec. bill would still decline by about 40% so the $4800 would be recovered in about 4 years. That's a 24% ROI on your investment; much better than stocks or bonds. This, not more rooftop solar, is what I think makes sense going forward since its a win-win for both the customer and the environment. But its a new idea and like any new idea that upsets the status quo getting it accepted by the CPUC et al. is taking a lot of effort, and results are uncertain.
All-or-Nothing is putting my doctors and hospitals out of business! When will California take leadership and organize the failed Healthcare Crisis in our communities? Let's face the facts, Covered California and MediCal have marginalized care or been negligent and provided almost zero care for the "Members" they have enrolled. Those patients go to the Hospital with late stage chronic conditions or are having strokes and heart failures etc from negligence. The hospital gets denied by the "Managed Care" payer to the point that Anthem is being sued by the Hospital Association. This has huge rippling effects that continue to be ignored by politicians. So my point is that we MUST have accountability and stop throwing good money to these Health Plans and State and County Departments that are not providing medical services. Start paying Hospitals and Doctors directly or come up with a better strategic approach that works. This waiting until people are sick and dying approach is ruining our State and taking hospital access away from the citizens that worked hard to own property and have a restful retirement.
I agree that California is a wonderfully innovative state in terms of public benefit. That said, a lot of it costs money. I want to bring up the issue of housing and who owns it. Owning a home was a ticket to financial stability in the past. But fewer opportunities are available now and large investment entities are developing homes not always to the general benefit. We are possibly moving toward a renter nation. That is worrisome.
Strong agree that perfect should not be the enemy of good. Purity tests hamper progress. Better to inch along towards something than hold steady at nothing.
I was born disable. Never did I took advantage of the system which most of the people I know of did. I don’t want to complaint about anything. I do understand what is going on across the USA regarding to the lack of employment to the lack of help and seeing the prices goes up due to tariffs and American are hurting in many different ways. So to the point I like to say everyday to the politician in California. We talked about this before and will remind it again and I love the idea - which is- why can California be is own country (maybe connect with Oregon and Washington altogether as one country). I only say this because California alone can take care of ALL Californian period. We can create and make abundance of money for the Californian. Just throwing a reminder idea (if anyone remember this subject was brought up). Yes on 50, right? Let’s go California!!!
I don't understand why the California legislature gave in to PG&E to make solar less attractive to homeowners. If we are really interested in clean free energy there's nothing better. We put in solar about 10 years ago and our electric bill is zero! A 3200 square foot house, 5 computers, 3 TVs and a zero bill. Furthermore, our trueup showed that we had excess energy of over $600. I would like to see that law rescinded and everything done to make solar attractive to homeowners. Manufacture and installation of solar panels produced good jobs--an industry that is much weakened by this badly considered law. With increasing demand of data centers and the need to keep an old nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon on-line to meet our clean energy needs, we have destroyed a safer more economical way of producing much-needed electricity,
Solar is subsidized by electric rate payers. The subsidy was getting onerous and making electricity noticeably more expensive. Many solar owners happen to be wealthier too.
Elizabeth is right on this. Ive followed this issue carefully. Everyone with rooftop solar gets regular utility power through the grid at night, even more so at winter when solar production is low. Thus they use the grid. None solar customers like myself pay about 20 cents/kWh for this "transmission and distribution". However those who can zero out their electric bill obviously pay nothing to use the grid. This means those without rooftop solar have in fact been subsidizing those with it. So yes it has caused electric bills for non-solar customers to rise. (I think by a non-trivial amount but I can't recall how much) The grid costs get peanut buttered across everyone else. Those who just get their bill reduced are likewise being subsidized but not as much. This has led to the recent NEM debates in the CPUC. Those who installed solar before April 2024 were covered under the old NEM 1 & 2 plans where they could zero out their electric bills. The utilities and the CPUC judged this was unfair because it forced everyone without solar to subsidize those with solar. The debates started. At first the CPUC decided to terminate the benefits of NEM 1 &2 for those who installed rooftop solar over 10 years ago, by which time it should have paid for itself. They thought that was fair. But the rooftop industry and existing customers protested so the CPUC backed off and decided that NEM 1 &2 benefits - and the subsidy- will continue. However those installing solar after April 2024 now fall under NEM 3.0 where excess solar is only worth about 3 cents/kWh rather than the 40 or 50 c/kWh its worth under NEM 1 &2. That's severely diminished the financial attractiveness of new rooftop solar and put many solar companies out of business. Trumps repeal of the FTC has made things even worse. That's the simple explanation.
We pay approximately $11/month to connect to the grid. But we produce so much electricity it zeroes out that charge so the actual bill appears to be zero.
My point is if California is really interested in clean power there are thousands and thousands of rooftops which could carry solar panels, far more beneficial ecologically than planting solar panels on thousands of acres of open land which is what has been happening. So it’s better for everyone if the state came up with a solution that would eliminate the penalty for those without solar. The smartest way,of course, would be to get everyone on solar.
Actually, we are charged to connect to the grid
Data centers have a ton of environmental concerns, one of which is electricity demand. Another is cooling water. Is there a plan to incentivize data centers to install their own solar collectors as part of their designs, and to use the latest technology to minimize water consumption? Stockton and other places already have water shortages.
Tom,
I agree with all of these moves except SB 79, because SB 79 is an ineffective tool to address housing and because it is a massive corrupting influence of developer money on California politics. It would be more cost-effective to incentivize moving jobs to where new housing can be built more cheaply and with adequate infrastructure. Companies can relocate jobs for less cost than tearing up neighborhoods under the delusion that people will walk to bad transit that doesn't get them to where they need to go in any practical amount of time. For the most part they will drive. Vitalizing Central Valley cities would have a faster effect on the housing supply while improving rather than degrading our overall quality of life.
Regards,
Steve
We’re all entitled to an opinion, Tom. It would be nice if it were developed more objectively.
SB 79 is another Scott Wiener handout to developers. The industry has absolutely no interest in solving California’s housing problem. That’s because the state doesn’t have a housing problem. It has an affordable housing problem, and developers don’t consider that a profitable endeavor.
That’s because the State did nothing to provide incentives. It didn’t provide tax credits to builders. It didn’t allocate funding for municipalities to offset the increased infrastructure costs to accommodate thousands or tens of thousands of new residents: sanitation, fire and police protection, emergency services, education, road maintenance, healthcare and, most of all, water. When the State asks current residents to curtail their consumption of water and power, where are those commodities coming from to meet the needs of new residents?
New construction is not going up near mass transit. SB 79 permits building up to 1.5 miles from a rail or bus line. And only a meager 10-15% of those units need to be considered affordable. According to the first bill that, purportedly, encouraged the building of budget-friendly units — SB 330 — the target residents were “very low, low, and moderate income” individuals. The variances in SB 330 and succeeding legislation, however, handed out density bonuses in exchange for that same ineffective 10-15% ratio of affordable-to-market-rate units.
If Cap-and-Invest were legitimate, rooftop solar homes would still be compensated fairly. What began as a retail number — credit in the same amount per kilowatt hour that the electric utilities billed to customers — is now one-tenth of that. It is, in other words, State-approved theft. SCE, PG&E, and SDG&E can pay out 3¢ now, rather than 30, yet bill solar customers the higher rate when they consume power after dark. It is thoroughly inequitable and ignores the contribution that solar customers make, allowing the utilities to use existing plants to provide more power to more non-solar customers without massive increases in capital expenditures for new generation facilities.
CEQA is already being abused. Developers are skirting environmental quality concerns by supporting the lie that the state needs new housing, in general; not affordable housing, in particular.
Whether you consider your outlook Libertarian or capitulated Democrat or enlightened Republican, it’s still politics as Twain described it: “We have the best government that money can buy.” You’re not describing negotiation and compromise that primarily help California’s citizens. You’re supporting deals that let office holders convince industry to continue to donate to their election campaigns.
I've been wondering where you've been, Mr. Steyer. I used to get notices from you, and I did write to subscribe to your emails, but I've gotten nothing until now. I'm happy to see that you are still engaged in helping the environment, and I do agree that we can do this in increments. However, time is of the essence, and I'd like to see you do whatever you can to facilitate the passing of these measures.
Tom, thank you for writing this. I have to say you are right that it's hard to be a California family today. We are struggling with all the things you mentioned. Ŵhy is PGE and landlords trying to get rich off of us? Soon California will continue to loose people because native Californians are struggling too. I was raised here from the 70s and have seen the devastating changes. From where does our help come?
People, communities and companies who achieve frugality with energy are HEROES! They are the ones building a better society, reducing green house gas emissions and are process innovators. Let's celebrate people who do more with less.
Energy frugality is a choice everyone has right now.
Be a hero, be the change.
Thank you Frugal Heroes.
Under the label Remote Solar Advocates I've developed a potential new way for homeowners and renters to obtain solar power that is far less expensive than rooftop solar because it allows them to purchase panels in large utility-scale solar farms which generate power 6 times less expensively than rooftop solar. For instance my financial model shows that a remote-solar system capable of generating as much power that a typical home uses (6400 kWh/year) would only cost about $4800. That would be paid back in about 4 years thru reduced electric bills giving the customer an ROI of about 24%/year on that $4800 investment. I stress that remote-solar is fundamentally different than community solar. I've formally asked the CPUC to consider this idea under docket A22-05-022 as a way to increase renewables, lower electric bills, stimulate EV sales and potentially make new homes less expensive. But its not clear the CPUC will respond favorably since the utility companies are opposed to this new competition. I'm doing this to help fight climate change but as just one individual I can't lobby effectively. Mr. Steyer, I've tried to send you detailed whitepapers on this but don't have your email address. Could you send it to me at "remotesolaradvocates@gmail.com"? --Rich Harkness, BSEE, PhD, author of a book on global warming, retired strategic and new business planner living in Santa Rosa.
I would really like to see more transit/subway lines built around densely populated areas bcz it's true that living near transit lines eliminates the need for driving, reduces pollution, and allows people to live in more affordable areas yet still be able to catch a subway or bus to work downtown. I understand zoning laws make it hard for developers to build within city limits w/scarce land and/or very expensive land-costs, so building farther out is a solution (to provide affordable housing) albeit with the caveat as mentioned, that we need better public transportation-planning to go along with the build-outs to such areas.
Appreciate your reflections Tom
One step at a time in an interactive, interconnected, interdependent ecosystem approach. Let’s be more inclusive:education, health, technology,
energy,economy, transportation, environment, housing -all involved in leading to a healthier prosperous state and nation
Democracy is good for your health
Think bold, start small, move with passion and purpose
Now is the time to bridge the gap and cross
the chasm
Moving forward with spirit, hope, energy
Marsha, you are one of the fortunate folks who installed solar before the rules changed. Good move on your part. I hope it was inspired as a way to help fight climate change. I'm a great fan of solar but when I found it costs six times more (per kWh) to generate solar power using rooftop arrays than in utility-scale solar farms I decided to see how we could take advantage of that. What resulted was a potential new way that homeowners and renters could obtain solar that was far less expensive than rooftop. I called it "remote-solar" because your panels would be located in a remote solar farm not on your roof. Turns out the financials of remote-solar are very attractive. A remote-solar system costing $4800 would generate as much power as a $34,000 rooftop system. Yes the remote-solar customer would pay to use the grid to -figuratively speaking- transport the electricity from the solar farm to his/her home, but the customers elec. bill would still decline by about 40% so the $4800 would be recovered in about 4 years. That's a 24% ROI on your investment; much better than stocks or bonds. This, not more rooftop solar, is what I think makes sense going forward since its a win-win for both the customer and the environment. But its a new idea and like any new idea that upsets the status quo getting it accepted by the CPUC et al. is taking a lot of effort, and results are uncertain.
All-or-Nothing is putting my doctors and hospitals out of business! When will California take leadership and organize the failed Healthcare Crisis in our communities? Let's face the facts, Covered California and MediCal have marginalized care or been negligent and provided almost zero care for the "Members" they have enrolled. Those patients go to the Hospital with late stage chronic conditions or are having strokes and heart failures etc from negligence. The hospital gets denied by the "Managed Care" payer to the point that Anthem is being sued by the Hospital Association. This has huge rippling effects that continue to be ignored by politicians. So my point is that we MUST have accountability and stop throwing good money to these Health Plans and State and County Departments that are not providing medical services. Start paying Hospitals and Doctors directly or come up with a better strategic approach that works. This waiting until people are sick and dying approach is ruining our State and taking hospital access away from the citizens that worked hard to own property and have a restful retirement.
I agree that California is a wonderfully innovative state in terms of public benefit. That said, a lot of it costs money. I want to bring up the issue of housing and who owns it. Owning a home was a ticket to financial stability in the past. But fewer opportunities are available now and large investment entities are developing homes not always to the general benefit. We are possibly moving toward a renter nation. That is worrisome.
Strong agree that perfect should not be the enemy of good. Purity tests hamper progress. Better to inch along towards something than hold steady at nothing.
Hey Tom,
I was born disable. Never did I took advantage of the system which most of the people I know of did. I don’t want to complaint about anything. I do understand what is going on across the USA regarding to the lack of employment to the lack of help and seeing the prices goes up due to tariffs and American are hurting in many different ways. So to the point I like to say everyday to the politician in California. We talked about this before and will remind it again and I love the idea - which is- why can California be is own country (maybe connect with Oregon and Washington altogether as one country). I only say this because California alone can take care of ALL Californian period. We can create and make abundance of money for the Californian. Just throwing a reminder idea (if anyone remember this subject was brought up). Yes on 50, right? Let’s go California!!!
Best regards, Eric
I tried over and over to complete the Profile. My "handle" is Rich but the site rejected it plus anything else I entered.