Posted on by Californiacontrarian

What Is Fair ?

I am writing this at the risk of offending some of my friends with rooftop solar panels, but by the end, I hope that they will agree that “fairness” is sometimes merely a relative term. Let’s start out by admitting that our public utilities here in California cannot operate at a loss, as any any company that operates at a loss will not be in business for long. Imagine what living anywhere in this day and age would be like without electricity. Certainly those with rooftop solar panels and storage batteries would be better off than the rest of us. All will admit that we need electricity in grocery stores . . . and even those with electric cars will admit that we need traffic signals and Nordstrom’s. Nobody wants to live without the local utilities. Would it be fair or practical to insist that the utilities in California operate at a loss ? Probably not.

But “Houston, we have a ‘fairness’ problem!” Tens of thousands of rooftop solar units combined with the state’s program of compensating owners of rooftop solar, known as net metering, has resulted in higher rates for everyone else. For example, added cost for PG&E customers, about $130/yr., $36/yr. for SCE, and $200/yr. for SDG&E. Electric service providers up and down the state are proposing fees to try to obviate this inequity, and the Merced Irrigation District has already approved a $65/month fee on customers who install solar panels starting in January, 2020. What is fair? For the most part those who do not have rooftop solar panels are those who cannot afford them. So in essence this means that those on the lower part of the economic salary scale are the ones who are already paying these higher rates, and the more rooftop solar units that are put in, the more they will have to pay.

Is this fair? It sounds eerily similar to the recent gas tax increase that practically excludes those who have electric cars  . . . and who are the ones who are getting stuck paying to maintain the roads? Hint: Those who are benefitting are those who can afford electric cars, and I suspect that most of these electric car owners also have solar panels. Ummm!

On the other hand, a lot of those who already have solar panels say that part of the reason they put in the solar was so they would not have to pay monthly electric bills, and charging them a monthly minimum fee at this juncture is not fair! A dilemma! But let’s take a step back and look at this “dilemma” in general terms. Isn’t this just another example of the liberal members of the global warming religion (the Democrats) passing legislation that in essence harms those among us, who are least able to afford it? Yes, paying a minimum monthly fee if you have solar panels may in some ways be unfair, but if you could pay the 20+K to put up your solar panels . . . suck it up, as you can afford it!

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