Editorial: Figuring out the energy needs of Nevada: Take 2

Monday, March 28, 2016 | 2 a.m.

It’s all too obvious that Nevada’s efforts to allow homeowners to generate their own electricity with photovoltaic solar cells have been less than graceful. They’ve been downright clumsy, in fact, because all the issues hadn’t been worked out before more than 17,000 homeowners took the bait to buy or lease solar panels for their rooftops.

These homeowners should not be blamed for doing what was, on various levels, the right thing: investing in a clean-energy future by generating rooftop electricity; sparing NV Energy some of the high demand it faces on summer afternoons when it costs the utility the most to buy power from other sources; and pulling electricity off of the grid at night as credit for the excess power they contributed to the grid during the day.

But as we know, there were complaints that solar panel users, who received financial incentives, were escaping some of the cost of maintaining the power grid, which they still need to use. So the Legislature told the Nevada Public Utilities Commission to come up with new rates, which now have been imposed on a graduated scale but which will, in time, make solar power more expensive for rooftop electricty generators than had they stayed with NV Energy as conventional customers. Great expectations unraveled.

Wow. What went wrong?

“It looked like a bit of a bait-and-switch,” said a frustrated Sig Rogich, a political consultant and clean-energy enthusiast. “It’s terrible to see consumers work with good intentions and based upon what the state said they could do, and then not see it come to fruition in the final analysis.”

From the outside looking in, it appears that not everyone was on the same page when the price of solar panels plummeted, making them a practical alternative for people wanting to harvest their own electricity for reasons both environmental and economical. Not all the facts were on the table, and that lack of full disclosure and transparency came to bite solar panel customers in the wallet. The issue of charging solar panel users for leaving the grid should have been discussed long before people made solar investments.

Who’s in charge around here? Couldn’t there have been better, more consumer-friendly coordination?

Answers may come from Gov. Brian Sandoval’s New Energy Industry Task Force, which was established in 2011 to address issues relevant then, but which Sandoval reconvened in late March. This time, the committee’s marching orders are to recommend “the best energy policies for Nevada’s future.” The policies are meant to encourage the development and integration of clean energy, modernize a cost-effective energy grid (which utilities in other states already are doing to promote the distribution of rooftop solar power), and to support rooftop solar power generation and the development of storage systems — super batteries — to store daytime power for nighttime use.

Rebecca Wagner, a former member of the PUC, hopes that with the task force’s attention, the state can “regain the confidence of the solar rooftop industry in Nevada, take into account the concerns of legislators and the PUC and, at same time, recognize the full value of rooftop solar and the benefits it provides.”

It’s possible, she said, that with the task force’s work, a ballot issue and a lawsuit all concerning this matter, the reset button will be pushed and a new plan will emerge that encourages rather than punishes people who go solar.

We agree. It is imperative that the governor’s task force deliver to the Legislature a clear path for Nevada, with NV Energy and the PUC on board, to fully tap our primary resource — the sun — and encourage homeowners to have a role in its conversion to electricity to add stability to our power supply and provide resilience to the grid.