An Appeal For Balance in Solar Advocacy Priorities

A follow-up to yesterday’s piece on the balance that must be struck between private and municipal solar interests.

In an open letter yesterday, some have raised concerns that the lobbying is tilted too far in favor of municipalities. Net metering remains a focal point in the debate. Yesterday, an open letter was addressed to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) expressing concerns of some in the industry.

Our industry employs over 200,000 people, over 1 million homes now host PV systems, more solar is being deployed than any other energy source, and solar is delivering electricity at a value greater than new natural-gas plants across the country. An Urgent Plea to SEIA: Change Your Solar Advocacy Priorities

thumbnail courtesy of greentechmedia.com

The SEIA has issued a response of their own here.

No doubt we’ll be hearing much more on this issue as the leadership of SEIA is in transition. For now Jigar Shah and Barry Cinnamon have put out a petition and are soliciting signatures in support of their concerns.

But as we noted yesterday, we completely agree with the need to protect distributed generation and residential solar with incentives such as net metering.

We cannot allow utilities to dictate the rules in the marketplace as they have in Hawaii, Nevada and they are attempting to do in Floria in November. Because the consumer invariably loses in that scenario.

An Appeal For Balance in Solar Advocacy Priorities posted first on Solar Solutions Team Blog