Letter: Rocky Mountain Power continues efforts to devalue rooftop solar
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) LJ Jenkins, with Elan Solar, installs solar panels on a Santaquin home on Friday, Nov. 6, 2020.
By Tom Mills | The Public Forum
| March 16, 2021, 12:00 p.m.
Rocky Mountain Power has been trying to kill the rooftop solar industry since it started to gain popularity back in 2015. RMP claims that they are trying to protect the consumer when they are doing just the opposite. RMP is protecting their own interests.
Individual ownership of electrical-generating systems, commonly referred to as distributed generation, is direct competition to a century-old business model that RMP has enjoyed without challenge. Today’s renewable energy technology now proves that this business model no longer works. Energy can now be generated on-site with individual ownership of rooftop solar systems.
Flip a switch, and the lights come on. It seems simple and innocuous, and for many, it’s where the story begins and ends. But energy in Utah is anything but simple. Every phone charged, every movie streamed and every room illuminated comes with a cost. In the Beehive State, more than in most places, that’s paid in carbon.
Utah generates 64% of its electricity by burning coal. That proportion has declined substantially since 2001 (94%) but it still dwarfs the national figure of 23%. Utah has the worst average air quality index ranking of any state and is economically vulnerable as climate change affects snow conditions. A coordinated, concerted effort between residents, local industry and the state government to back cleaner electricity generation is needed, but that’s not what’s occurring.
Electric bills to drop slightly in Utah in 2021
Rocky Mountain Power and state officials also plan to make wildfire prevention upgrades.
(Steve Griffin | Tribune file photo) A Rocky Mountain Power crew works on power lines in Salt Lake City in 2013. Rates will drop about 0.7% in January, Rocky Mountain Power announced in a news statement Thursday.
| Jan. 1, 2021, 5:48 a.m.
Electric bills will go down slightly starting in January following new agreements between Rocky Mountain Power and the Utah Public Service Commission, as well as recent federal tax refunds.
Rates will drop about 0.7%, Rocky Mountain Power announced in a news statement Thursday.
Solar Credits Remain Hot in Utah
Solar Credits Remain Hot in Utah
Comments Off on Solar Credits Remain Hot in Utah
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah Utah rooftop solar stakeholders and outside renewable energy advocates are challenging a Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) decision to lower the export credits customers receive for pumping solar energy into the grid.
The PSC, the largest utility in the state, announced in late October that it is reducing the export credit rate from 9.4 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to 6 cents per kWh in the summer and 5.6 cents per kWh in the winter. Rocky Mountain Power had previously requested permission to reduce the rate, which is granted to customers in exchange for sharing excess solar energy with the public through the utility as a way to encourage private investment in solar panels, to 1.5 cents per kWh.