State of Nevada is now taxing sunlight?

[Cabal]

Sunny Nevada Just Killed The Solar Industry With 40% Tax Hike, Derailing The Off-Grid Movement (http://www.activistpost.com/2016/01/sunny-nevada-just-killed-the-solar-industry-with-40-tax-hike-derailing-the-off-grid-movement.html)


While Nevadans were celebrating the holidays under solar-powered lights, the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously to increase a monthly fee on solar customers by 40% while reducing the amount they get paid for excess power sold to the grid. Adding insult to injury, they made the rate changes retroactive, sabotaging consumer investments in solar energy.

This single move by government regulators will effectively kill the solar industry in Nevada and put an end to the surge of people seeking to detach from the grid by harnessing their own energy from the sun. Just as importantly, it serves to protect the profits of Nevada’s public utility company, NV Energy.

“It will destroy the rooftop solar industry in one of the states with the most sunshine…There is so much wrong with the decision,” said SolarCity CEO Lydon Rive. “The one beneficiary of this decision would be NV Energy, whose monopoly will have been protected.”

Two major solar companies, SolarCity and Sunrun, have already left the state, causing upwards of a thousand job cuts. Many more renewable energy jobs are at stake. Solar industry supporters and workers are planning to protest the new rates at a rally in Carson City and Las Vegas, as industry and public outcry may force regulators to reconsider their decision.

One Nevada resident wrote in the Las Vegas Sun that she feels “financially ambushed” after tapping into their retirement savings to become a solar household. Before the rate change, the system would have paid for itself in 14 years, but now that will never happen.


With the new pricing for [net metering] customers, the value or price of the energy they produce will be vastly reduced. In addition, the flat service charge for NEM customers will rise to three times that charged to nonsolar residential customers, a kind of penalty for producing much of our own electricity. The people with solar on their homes feel cheated; solar businesses are closing or leaving.

NV Energy—a regulated monopoly with an “authorized rate of return”—is unabashed in saying that the surge in renewable energy is cutting into their profits. Last year the company, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, got Sen. Patricia Farley to draft the amendment that shifted the state’s net metering over to the PUC. In their view, solar customers “don’t pay their fair share to maintain the grid.”

With the rate changes, Nevada regulators are demonstrating the willingness and ease with which government can neutralize the “off-grid” movement while protecting their favorite utilities. Rooftop solar, along with innovations such as Tesla’s Powerwall, represents a huge opportunity for people to free themselves from an energy structure ruled by corporations and state co-conspirators.

Residential solar customers are not the only threat to the profits of NV Energy.


A consortium of casinos and businesses is looking to leave NV Energy’s grid and start generating their own power, saying they’re being placed at a competitive disadvantage because they’re paying more for energy than their business rivals in nearby states. The state Public Utilities Commission has said it would charge hefty fees — $27 million in the case of Las Vegas data center Switch — to let industrial ratepayers leave the system.

The fight between NV Energy and the solar industry may be a microcosm of a larger struggle involving the fossil fuel industry. The American Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel advocacy organization backed by the infamous Koch brothers, applauded the Nevada decision as a matter of national policy. They are pushing efforts in other states to curtail the rise of solar energy.

In this vein, the outcome of Nevada’s situation could have implications far beyond that state.


Nevada could set a precedent for other states, Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote in note Tuesday. Regulators across the country are grappling with how to spur the development of clean energy sources while ensuring operators can collect enough money to maintain and update their grids. – Bloomberg News

The question must be asked, why does government protect the status quo? Why is it assumed that existing utility operators must be preserved in this rapidly changing energy landscape? Instead, consider that old utility grids are no longer applicable in the 21st century.

This is a pivotal moment in the evolution of the energy paradigm. We have the ability to leave behind the dirty, corrupt legacy of fossil fuels and enter an era of localized, renewable energy. As The Free Thought Project reported in November, within 25 years we could have a complete energy transformation, as the cost of renewables declines and technology advances exponentially. Rooftop solar and localized systems will lead the revolution.

In order to achieve this, we must break from the grip of those who would keep us in the dark ages to satiate their thirst for power and wealth.

[Origanalist]

That is pretty outlandish protectionism, even for government.

[Dianne]

wtf? Way to go Harry Reid.

[CaptUSA]

Candlemakers' petition?

[Chester Copperpot]

Retroactive laws are unconstitutional

[Henry Rogue]

http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
Candlemakers' petition?


A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.To the Honourable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Open letter to the French Parliament, originally published in 1845 (Note of the Web Publisher)

Gentlemen:You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and have little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the*domestic market*fordomestic industry.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your — what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is*flooding*the*domestic market*with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us*[1].

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's-eyes, deadlights, and blinds — in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.

First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?

If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.

Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.

The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.

But what shall we say of the*specialities*of*Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.

There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity.

It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.

We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of free trade. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not instantly rebound against yourselves and the principle behind all your policy.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?

We have our answer ready:

You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. You have sacrificed him whenever you have found his interests opposed to those of the producer. You have done so in order*to encourage industry and to increase employment. For the same reason you ought to do so this time too.

Indeed, you yourselves have anticipated this objection. When told that the consumer has a stake in the free entry of iron, coal, sesame, wheat, and textiles, ``Yes,'' you reply, ``but the producer has a stake in their exclusion.'' Very well, surely if consumers have a stake in the admission of natural light, producers have a stake in its interdiction.

``But,'' you may still say, ``the producer and the consumer are one and the same person. If the manufacturer profits by protection, he will make the farmer prosperous. Contrariwise, if agriculture is prosperous, it will open markets for manufactured goods.'' Very well, If you grant us a monopoly over the production of lighting during the day, first of all we shall buy large amounts of tallow, charcoal, oil, resin, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, and crystal, to supply our industry; and, moreover, we and our numerous suppliers, having become rich, will consume a great deal and spread prosperity into all areas of domestic industry.

Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of Nature, and that to reject such gifts would be to reject wealth itself under the pretext of encouraging the means of acquiring it?

But if you take this position, you strike a mortal blow at your own policy; remember that up to now you have always excluded foreign goods*because*and*in proportion*as they approximate gratuitous gifts. You have only*half*as good a reason for complying with the demands of other monopolists as you have for granting our petition, which is in*complete*accord with your established policy; and to reject our demands precisely because they are*better founded*than anyone else's would be tantamount to accepting the equation:*+ x + = -; in other words, it would be to heap*absurdity*upon*absurdity.

Labour and Nature collaborate in varying proportions, depending upon the country and the climate, in the production of a commodity. The part that Nature contributes is always free of charge; it is the part contributed by human labour that constitutes value and is paid for.

If an orange from Lisbon sells for half the price of an orange from Paris, it is because the natural heat of the sun, which is, of course, free of charge, does for the former what the latter owes to artificial heating, which necessarily has to be paid for in the market.

Thus, when an orange reaches us from Portugal, one can say that it is given to us half free of charge, or, in other words, at*half price*as compared with those from Paris.

Now, it is precisely on the basis of its being*semigratuitous*(pardon the word) that you maintain it should be barred. You ask: ``How can French labour withstand the competition of foreign labour when the former has to do all the work, whereas the latter has to do only half, the sun taking care of the rest?'' But if the fact that a product is*half*free of charge leads you to exclude it from competition, how can its being*totally*free of charge induce you to admit it into competition? Either you are not consistent, or you should, after excluding what is half free of charge as harmful to our domestic industry, exclude what is totally gratuitous with all the more reason and with twice the zeal.

To take another example: When a product — coal, iron, wheat, or textiles — comes to us from abroad, and when we can acquire it for less labour than if we produced it ourselves, the difference is a*gratuitous gift*that is conferred up on us. The size of this gift is proportionate to the extent of this difference. It is a quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product if the foreigner asks of us only three-quarters, one-half, or one-quarter as high a price. It is as complete as it can be when the donor, like the sun in providing us with light, asks nothing from us. The question, and we pose it formally, is whether what you desire for France is the benefit of consumption free of charge or the alleged advantages of onerous production. Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you ban, as you do, foreign coal, iron, wheat, and textiles,*in proportion*as their price approaches zero, how inconsistent it would be to admit the light of the sun, whose price is*zero*all day long!

Frédéric Bastiat*(1801-1850),*Sophismes économiques, 1845

[CaptUSA]

Seriously, though. I'm split on this.

The reason the utilities are fighting this is because they have been paying these people for the privilege to be able to "ship" the distributed generation for them. Rooftop solar is great, but when you connect it to the grid, you are asking someone else to move it for you. By not correcting this problem, all other users of the grid are actually subsidizing the solar generation. It is also far more complicated to manage the grid when other sources are continually being added. The grid isn't really set up for it. But net-metering hasn't really addressed the added costs of upgrading the real-time calculations necessary to prevent outages and surges.

On the flip-side... The utilities have a government-sponsored monopoly on the wires. So even if the solar generators wanted to introduce their own distribution system, they are barred from doing so. And, the utilities already receive some pretty substantial subsidies.

This issue is way more complicated than it seems. The best answer would be to allow the free market to tackle these problems, but that would mean that there would be longer duration outages and a more unreliable power system for a time being during the transition. I don't think many people are ready for that or put enough faith in laissez faire to work things out naturally.

[idiom]

How in the fuck do you have a retroactive rate change and not have blood in the streets?

[kpitcher]

The power grid was paid for by government subsidies and outright fees paid as a user, it should be spun off into a non profit to maintain. Every company would have the same fee structure to use.

Of course this is the same as the land line telephone grid should also be ran but isn't.

[Anti Federalist]

That is pretty outlandish protectionism, even for government.

And, as usual, nothing was "voted" on by anybody even jokingly labeled a representative of the people.

This, like so much we suffer under, was a regulatory fatwa.

[Anti Federalist]

How in the fuck do you have a retroactive rate change and not have blood in the streets?

Because AmeriKunts are so docile and cowtowed and brainwashed to accept whatever "authority" tells them they must do, that, quite literally, a cop could rape a man's wife right in front of him and he'd thank the cop for his service.

[timosman]

Because AmeriKunts are so docile and cowtowed and brainwashed to accept whatever "authority" tells them they must do, that, quite literally, a cop could rape a man's wife right in front of him and he'd thank the cop for his service.

Aren't you too harsh on your fellow shitizens?

[XNavyNuke]

This issue is way more complicated than it seems. The best answer would be to allow the free market to tackle these problems, but that would mean that there would be longer duration outages and a more unreliable power system for a time being during the transition. I don't think many people are ready for that or put enough faith in laissez faire to work things out naturally.

It's pretty straight forward for the alternative energy producer who ties into the grid.

All they have to do is consider it like a marriage to the energy company. The party offering the prenup has all the money, high end lawyers, and political connections. If you don't want to sign the prenup as a seriously unequal party then don't design your system as a grid tie.

The commissioners were "publicly" opposed to the utility's proposal right up until the vote. Most of the bureaucrats in utility regulation follow the revolving door policy between industry and government. These folks are looking out for their next job.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/puc-official-opposes-rooftop-solar-change-sought-nv-energy

XNN

[jbauer]

So.....don't sell your excess power to the grid. Are libertarians asking the government to prop up the solar industry by setting a price floor?

[TheTexan]

I guess some people weren't paying their fair share

[timosman]

Isn't solar one of the most expensive(w/o subsidies) sources of energy?

[specsaregood]

So.....don't sell your excess power to the grid. Are libertarians asking the government to prop up the solar industry by setting a price floor?

Indeed. It's rather laughable to call it an "off-grid" movement is the complaint that they aren't getting paid enough to send power to the grid. lol

Also, can we discuss all the govt subsidies being used to purchase the solar systems?

[presence]

innovations such as Tesla’s Powerwall, represents a huge opportunity for people to free themselves

I've never been much of a fan of the "grid tie" concept. There are just too many layers of bullshit no matter how you twist it for me to get my heart behind any of it on an activist level.

I think in the future as we move away from "the grid" we'll see a mixture of fossil generators and renewables "locally" grid tied on community grids constituting 10's or 100's of homes, rather than 10,000's or 100,000's of homes. It will come first in rural areas... you'll see small neighborhoods sprout up on jointly held land that have a battery banked HOA grid but aren't tied to "the grid". I'm a rural electrician/plumber and I already see it happening.

[Origanalist]

Just take it to the next step and disconnect from the grid.

[Occam's Banana]

How in the fuck do you have a retroactive rate change and not have blood in the streets?

Every week i read the real news and every week i am just left dumbstruck on why more people aren't shot in the face...

http://i.imgur.com/OzRJRrr.png

[morfeeis]

Every week i read the real news and every week i am just left dumbstruck on why more people aren't shot in the face...

[Cabal]

Just take it to the next step and disconnect from the grid.


A consortium of casinos and businesses is looking to leave NV Energy’s grid and start generating their own power, saying they’re being placed at a competitive disadvantage because they’re paying more for energy than their business rivals in nearby states. The state Public Utilities Commission has said it would charge hefty fees — $27 million in the case of Las Vegas data center Switch — to let industrial ratepayers leave the system.

It would seem it is a costly thing to do.

[presence]

Isn't solar one of the most expensive(w/o subsidies) sources of energy?

That's not really true anymore.

http://cleantechnica.com/files/2014/09/price-of-solar-power-drop-graph.jpg

[timosman]

That's not really true anymore.

It is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#United_States

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Projected_LCOE_in_the_U.S._by_2020_%28as_of_2015%2 9.png

[jmdrake]

Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
Taxman!
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
Don't ask me what I want it for (Aahh Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more (Aahh Mr. Heath)
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me
Taxman!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OgkjcW0g4

[timosman]

Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
Taxman!
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
Don't ask me what I want it for (Aahh Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more (Aahh Mr. Heath)
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
Cos I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me
Taxman!



All of the solar subsidies come at no cost to the taxpayer.:rolleyes:

[LibForestPaul]

Seriously, though. I'm split on this.

The reason the utilities are fighting this is because they have been paying these people for the privilege to be able to "ship" the distributed generation for them. Rooftop solar is great, but when you connect it to the grid, you are asking someone else to move it for you. By not correcting this problem, all other users of the grid are actually subsidizing the solar generation. It is also far more complicated to manage the grid when other sources are continually being added. The grid isn't really set up for it. But net-metering hasn't really addressed the added costs of upgrading the real-time calculations necessary to prevent outages and surges.

On the flip-side... The utilities have a government-sponsored monopoly on the wires. So even if the solar generators wanted to introduce their own distribution system, they are barred from doing so. And, the utilities already receive some pretty substantial subsidies.

This issue is way more complicated than it seems. The best answer would be to allow the free market to tackle these problems, but that would mean that there would be longer duration outages and a more unreliable power system for a time being during the transition. I don't think many people are ready for that or put enough faith in laissez faire to work things out naturally.

People, the same people who allowed Ukrainian Holocaust, raping of Nanking, cold-war are goining to wise-up? No, people(all) are foolish and greedy and afraid...bad mix

[Cabal]

All of the solar subsidies come at no cost to the taxpayer.:rolleyes:

Every form of energy production is subsidized.

Edit: Also, a lot of 'subsidies' come in the form of tax breaks.

[Occam's Banana]

Also, a lot of 'subsidies' come in the form of tax breaks.

I must respectfully but vehemently disagree. Tax breaks are not subsidies.

As I said in reply to a similar claim in another thread:

I was with you right up until "tax breaks [...] are effectively government subsidies [...]".

Not stealing from someone (or not stealing as much) is in no way a "subsidy." A thief who steals $20 from you and $10 from me is not "subsidizing" me ("effectively" or otherwise). The net of my gross pay less taxes is certainly not a "subsidy" of any kind.

Subsidies consist in what the government gives, not in what it doesn't take. That some groups may be expropriated more than others (and that this may be the result of special-interest "winners and losers" politics) is not the same thing - not even "effectively."

[Cabal]

I must respectfully but vehemently disagree. Tax breaks are not subsidies.

As I said in reply to a similar claim in another thread:

My point was that tax breaks are typically included in calculations of subsidies (e.g. "$x in subsidies" could very well mean half of that is tax breaks), hence the putting quotes around subsidies. In general, when people talk about subsidy figures, tax breaks are included in those figures.

I don't consider tax breaks actual subsidies.

[luctor-et-emergo]

Indeed. It's rather laughable to call it an "off-grid" movement is the complaint that they aren't getting paid enough to send power to the grid. lol

Also, can we discuss all the govt subsidies being used to purchase the solar systems?


So.....don't sell your excess power to the grid. Are libertarians asking the government to prop up the solar industry by setting a price floor?

They will just make it illegal to have solar panels on a residence without them being connected to the grid. This is already the case in Belgium. I've talked to friends who live there and wanted to get off the grid with solar panels but it turns out that's illegal.

Luckily here you can do whatever you want. Still, if you've got space for a small shed with some batteries and a converter... It's probably worth it since with all the taxes you pay on electricity you get about 1/3 of the price for your power that you pay if you buy it back.

Oh and you need one of those smart meter things.. The kind of thing that keeps track of your power consumption, remotely of course.. So hackers could theoretically see if you are home or not.

[Occam's Banana]

My point was that tax breaks are typically included in calculations of subsidies (e.g. "$x in subsidies" could very well mean half of that is tax breaks), hence the putting quotes around subsidies. In general, when people talk about subsidy figures, tax breaks are included in those figures.

I don't consider tax breaks actual subsidies.

Okay, I see now. I spoke out of turn, then. :o Good! :) (I probably should have known better ... ;))

I misinterpreted your original statement (that many "subsidies" come in the form of tax breaks) as implying that tax breaks are to be considered as subsidies, rather than merely that they are commonly counted as such (but ought not to be). In issues involving "public" expenditures, two of my biggest pet peeves are the pernicious notions that "tax breaks are subsidies" and that "reductions in spending increases are spending cuts" ...

[MCJ62]

But aren't we always told that it's the private interests, not government, that is responsible for our reliance on fossil fuels? That efforts to roll back government meddling is on its face an attempt to further the cause of "Big Oil?" Examples such as this need to showcased more often in order to communicate the benefits of free markets to environmentalists and skeptics of big business.

[Brian4Liberty]

So.....don't sell your excess power to the grid. Are libertarians asking the government to prop up the solar industry by setting a price floor?

Agree, don't sell to the power company. Are the people complaining "libertarians"?


Indeed. It's rather laughable to call it an "off-grid" movement is the complaint that they aren't getting paid enough to send power to the grid. lol

Also, can we discuss all the govt subsidies being used to purchase the solar systems?

It's all built-in as part of the solar sales pitch. Seems like the consumer might be able to take action for false advertising. But it was always inevitable that eventually, as a monopoly buyer of your excess energy, that the utility/gov partnership would eventually charge you for the privilege of generating energy for them.


Just take it to the next step and disconnect from the grid.

Yep. Store as much as you can. You can keep the grid connection, just don't use it that often.


They will just make it illegal to have solar panels on a residence without them being connected to the grid. This is already the case in Belgium. I've talked to friends who live there and wanted to get off the grid with solar panels but it turns out that's illegal.

And that would be the point where a "libertarian" solution runs into the roadblock of government force.

But in Belgium, is it all solar panels that are banned, or just the ones that aren't connected to the official utility? In other words, is there a double standard?

Unfortunately, some people will complain that solar panels are "ugly", especially if they are not well designed and implemented from an aesthetic perspective. Usually not a problem for people with a lot of space. But in the preferred global beehives, it is a huge issue.