Thoughts on Solar

As expected, the Glendale City Council yesterday voted to approve a Feed-in Tariff program patterned after programs that have failed.  Here’s our final report, for now.

One clear tell that the FiT proposed by GWP was a non-issue: no other solar company bothered to comment on it before the City Council.  As for the City Council itself, another tell - two of the five Councilmembers were participating via Skype and phone - but they both bailed after voting on the City’s budget but before the FiT came up for a vote.

Which left only me.

For the second week in a row, I was the only speaker to address the FiT.  I pointed out to the Council the failure of the programs in Anaheim and Riverside - the models for the GWP program - to yield a single solar installation in more than two years.  I reminded them of what we were told by the woman in Anaheim - that there is a difference between designing a program to meet the letter of the law and designing a program that works.  I acknowledged that they were going to pass the ordinance, because they had been told that they had no choice - they were stuck with buying a pig in a poke.  I encouraged them to revisit the issue in three months.  If GWP was correct, and their program was destined for greatness, we would certainly know by then - but if I was right, perhaps it would be proper to revisit this program and try to design one that would actually work.

That argument received some traction with the Council - and I have already set the reminder for three months from now to revisit this with the Council.  (Ironically, if you are speaking about something that is not on the agenda, they give you 5 minutes to speak, but for actual business before the Council, they only give you two. So when I return in September I will actually be able to layout my case in some detail!)

Once again, Councilmember Ontero picked up on what I said and asked Staff whether they had, indeed, designed a program that could only meet the letter of the law but not actually accomplish anything.  And again, GWP’s Chief Assistant General Manager, Steve Lins responded but did not actually answer the question.  Instead he brought up LADWP’s Ratepayer Advocate as complaining that LADWP was overpaying (an old argument that was rejected twice - by the LADWP Board and by the LA City Council).

Beyond that, Mr. Lins insisted that my complaints were that “my project” didn’t pencil out and that was why I was complaining.  Of course Mr. Lins knows nothing about my motivations so his speculation was unjustified.  For the record (since Council rules did not afford me an opportunity to respond), Run on Sun did not have a client that we were representing here - we were simply advocating for sound public policy in support of solar.

So the program is now adopted and we will wait and see how this plays out.