Corporation Commission incumbent and former Mesa councilman spar with opponents

The lone incumbent seeking reelection to the state’s utility regulatory agency is defending the panel’s decisions to cut programs to encourage use of renewable energy and eliminate most rebates for energy efficiency purchases.

Republican Kevin Thompson, a former Mesa councilman, said while he has nothing against solar, the technology has not yet come far enough to make it reliable – even in a state with so much sunshine.

“Battery technology is not where it needs to be to cover nighttime,’’ he said during a televised debate Sept. 8 at KAET-TV among candidates running for the two open seats on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission.

Consider, he said, a dust storm that hit the Phoenix area last year about 3 p.m., the beginning of peak electricity demand. He said Arizona Public Service and Salt River Project lost more than 2,000 megawatts of solar power, what Thompson said is the equivalent of one of the three units at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station going offline.

“And they had to go to the natural gas ‘peakers’ to keep the grid up and running,’’ he said, referring to power plants that can be easily turned on to meet peak needs, albeit with natural gas. which is a fossil fuel.

What Thompson did not say, though, is that if Arizona did not have solar energy, utilities would have had to run their regular power plants to replace that electricity.

Democrat Clara Pratte said the commission should push utilities to pursue more electricity from solar. The key, she said, is affordability.

“Right now, solar energy is the cheapest form of energy on the market,’’ said Pratte, co-founder of Navajo Power, which works with tribes to develop renewable energy.

Pratte said she is not opposed to an “all-of-the-above’’ approach to energy sources. But she said the emphasis should be on renewables “versus being dependent on imports that are coming into our market.’’

“With solar, we can be generating our own energy and become energy independent at a time when we need extra energy,’’ Pratte said.

Fellow Democrat Jonathon Hill said he, too, believes the commission should be pursuing “balance.’’

“But they also shouldn’t be putting their thumb on the scale,’’ he said by promoting one source over another and creating disincentives for people to pursue renewable energy.

He pointed out that the commission just last month allowed two utilities to reduce what they pay customers who have rooftop solar for the amount of excess electricity they generate into the grid.

Thompson defended that decision.

“Ratepayers were subsidizing other ratepayers to have solar on their house,’’ he said, arguing that was not fair because it wasn’t helping lower-income people who need the most financial relief.

“Right now, the only people purchasing rooftop solar are the middle and upper-middle class individuals that can afford it,’’ he said. “And it’s the low-income and fixed-income folks that are subsidizing that.’

Thompson said that the commission allowed utilities to charge higher rates to make the payments to solar users.

Hill responded that if Thompson and his fellow Republican commissioners are so interested in helping those on limited income, the panel would not have voted in July to repeal energy-efficiency rules that provided breaks to customers who purchased things designed to save energy.

Thompson said the decision was the result of the commission reviewing energy efficiency programs that had been in place for decades, all without being evaluated for their effectiveness.

“We were subsidizing home builders to install energy efficient appliances,’’ Thompson said, to the tune of $250 million a year, all paid for from surcharges on rates paid by utility customers. “Can we even find a non-energy efficient appliance nowadays? No.’’

Ditto, he said, for paying customers to install shade trees.

Thompson said the commission kept programs that paid customers to install weatherstripping, insulation and even high-efficiency air conditioning units – “the things that actually make an impact on people’s bills.’’

Pratte did not dispute that the costs of utility programs designed to improve electric efficiency have been passed on to all customers. But she called it minimal.

Moderator Ted Simons asked Thompson about claims by those who were behind the energy efficiency standards that they helped stabilize utility bills, stabilize grid reliability, and reduce pollution.

Among those making those claims is current Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes – a Republican on the commission in 2010 – who helped create the standards in the first place.

Thompson sniffed at the assertion.

“I think if you look at it, the people who were behind that were the people who were making money off of those programs,’’ he said. “Again, it wasn’t helping the people that it was intended to help.’’

Those decisions to scrap the programs were shared by Nick Myers who, like Thompson, ran for reelection.

While Thompson placed first among the three contenders for two slots on the ballot, Myers ran third behind state Rep. Ralph Heap.

Heap has declined to participate in debates. He also is in trouble with the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which is investigating his failure to disclose money spent buying campaign signs.

Thompson also defended meeting with financial executives in New York, companies that may have a financial interest in utilities.

He said he would never meet with someone who had a pending matter before the commission.

“Otherwise, I think we’d be derelict in our duties by not trying to understand what the investment community is looking at when they want to come into Arizona,’’ Thompson said

“We want New York and Wall Street to invest in our utilities,’’ he said, because that will give those utilities access to “cheap capital’’ that holds down borrowing costs and, by extension, utility rates.

Hill, however, said it is impossible for someone tasked with regulating utilities, their policies, and what they charge customers which can affect their profitability, to truly be impartial.

“Under no circumstances should a sitting commissioner be meeting with financial interests behind the investors in these utilities,’’ he said.

“If you think about it, all the ratepayers, all the regular customers out there, they don’t get to meet with those people outside of the commission,’’ Hill continued. “They don’t have special access. So for the commissioners to give them special access to decision makers who are elected, I think it always inappropriate.’’

Pratte said it is possible for commissioners to reassure investors if done properly.

“I think that you do that in sunshine, you do that in public, you do that through the process that’s laid out before us,’’ she said. “You don’t meet behind closed doors and compromise your impartiality in meeting with these entities.’’