No, rooftop solar isn’t why power is so costly in California

“Why is your power bill so high? Look next door” (July 8): Sacramento Bee columnist Tom Philp and the Chamber of Commerce are feeding us a fantasy about why our utility rates are so high. Investor-owned utilities are not “subsidizing” rooftop solar. It’s the other way around. Rooftop solar production gives utilities access to a more efficient and safer product. Whether it is created on the roofs of homes, schools, hospitals or parking lots, the majority of rooftop solar electricity gets utilized right where it is made, decreasing need for transmission.

Didn’t we learn in Physics 101 that the distance electricity needs to be transmitted decreases efficiency? And, from recent wildfires, that long-distance electricity lines are a major factor?

The reality is that these utilities can only grow profits when they build more centralized power plants and transmission lines — which is folded into the rate base.

Let’s hope California legislators see through this attempt to villainize rooftop solar and vote no on changing the rules with AB 942.

— Rosalind Hirst, Normal Heights

Philp writes that “incentives account for 14% of the cost of a typical ratepayer bill,” but calling payments to solar owners who send power to the grid “incentives” is disingenuous. That electricity reduces the need to generate power for everyone. Utilities purchase natural gas for power generation; is that an “incentive”? Shouldn’t solar payments be categorized as “cost of goods sold”?

He says the payments are “akin to being forced to buy gasoline at $20 a gallon.” No, the utility companies aren’t reimbursing solar power owners at four times the price of electricity, whether under Net Energy Metering policy 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0.

Philp neglects to mention that AB 942 would abrogate the contract conditions that the state of California made with consumers. We made a deal and now you want to change the terms?

He views the California Chamber of Commerce as an impartial or independent body. That’s the biggest fairy tale in his entire column.

— David Morrison, San Diego

I hope the Bee columnist got a good lunch from those for-profit electric utility lobbyists because what they filled his head with about rooftop solar causing high rates was horsepucky. We and our neighbors have solar, sending any extra electricity down the street to those who don’t. SDG&E pays little and charges a lot to send that locally generated electricity to other customers.

We have the highest rates in the U.S. because SDG&E earns profits based on how much it owns and spends on equipment it owns. Time to take over the electric distribution system. Help everybody — homeowners, renters, businesses, shopping centers, schools, churches — to have rooftop and parking lot solar or be able to buy into local solar that is augmented with battery storage organized into community microgrids. We could export excess solar electricity and import money and create jobs for the common good.

— HC Jay Powell. Normal Heights