![]() Private electric utility companies shouldn't exist. Duke Energy does not deserve to continue existing. Wide-scale blackouts because a company ran out of electricity during a weather event they had the potential to know about far ahead of time is not inevitable, nor is it something that we should accept. Current battery technology is not cost-effective to utilize on a grid scale so power generation is (and will continue to be) a cat-and-mouse game of predicting energy demand and ramping up and down generation to match. Those happen from time to time – storms will knock out power lines and equipment will fail. Let's be clear, I don’t have a problem with blackouts. WCNC Charlotte reported that, in total, about 500,000 people lost power. As people froze, Duke Energy begged those with power to cut their usage back to prevent further rolling blackouts. The commission is expected to vote on the change in the coming weeks.On Christmas Day, thousands of North Carolinians woke up to freezing temperatures and no electricity.Ī combination of cold weather, high electricity usage and failing infrastructure caused the power demand to surpass supply. Mississippi Power argued against the rebates in a February filing to the commission Entergy Mississippi, which hasn’t opposed the rebates, said its acceptance depends on what the final rules say. In January, the Mississippi Public Service Commission proposed new rules that would add $3,000 cash rebates for low- and middle-income customers who install rooftop solar systems. But the utilities may have to offer other incentives. One, performed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2017, found that rooftop solar’s effect on electricity prices “will likely remain negligible for the foreseeable future” but that the costs could rise in states with “exceptionally high” rates of rooftop solar adoption.ĭespite efforts from solar installers and environmentalists, it seems unlikely that reimbursement rates for rooftop panel owners will increase in Mississippi. Some studies have supported the utilities’ argument, while others haven’t. But there are people who want to have clean energy and the right to self-generate.” “The utilities are kicking and screaming, crying foul, saying this is horrible,” said Louie Miller, the Mississippi director of the Sierra Club. They have resisted competition from rooftop panels, in part by asking regulators to limit the financial incentives for customers to install them, saying they are unfair to low-income customers. Most of that power is created by burning fossil fuels, but the utilities are also expanding their own solar offerings. In Mississippi, the dispute pits environmentalists and solar companies against the state’s largest utilities, Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi, regional monopolies whose business models depend on building power plants and transmission lines that deliver electricity to homes. In North Carolina, utility-backed proposals to change the state’s relatively generous rooftop solar subsidies have split environmentalists, with opponents saying the plan puts solar customers and installers in financial risk. In California, state regulators, at utilities’ urging, are considering whether to cut rooftop solar incentives. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, vetoed last week, saying it would hurt consumers. ![]() In Florida, the state’s largest utility persuaded lawmakers to vote to gut the state’s rooftop solar credits, a measure that Gov. But as solar power has become cheaper and more widespread, utilities in some states have pushed to curb the payments, said Autumn Proudlove, senior policy program director at the NC Clean Energy Technology Center at North Carolina State University. ![]() Bryan Tarnowski for NBC NewsĪlmost every state offers some kind of credit to rooftop solar owners who send excess power to the grid. “We are really shooting ourselves in the foot by not doing it.” “It’s such a low-hanging fruit, such an easy thing to do, to put panels on people’s roofs,” Jacobson said. to make the transition to all-renewable energy by 2050, he said. The technology will be vital for the U.S. Rooftop solar has a “huge potential” to cut air pollution, create jobs, protect against outages and shrink utility bills, said Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. The battle is one of several around the country that could determine the future of home solar panels, which advocates say are crucial to weaning the energy system off power sources that emit carbon dioxide, a major cause of global warming. ![]() How to fix that is the subject of a fight before the Mississippi Public Service Commission, which is considering rules that would expand subsidies for rooftop solar. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |