“[T]he evidence is clear that Increased Block Pricing is a key driver behind the distributed solar PV movement in California… The first step to rationalizing California’s electricity rates is to greatly reduce or eliminate increasing-block-pricing.”

“With federal subsidies that pay nearly half the cost of PV — and net metering that pays the residential customer for electricity supplied to the grid at the retail rate rather than the wholesale rate that other renewable generation sources receive – solar PV can beat the high-tier prices of IBP. That’s why solar PV installers are the most vocal opponents of rational rate reform that would call a kilowatt-hour a kilowatt-hour regardless of how many other kilowatt-hours you consume during the month.”

— Severin Borenstein, Director, University of California Energy Institute (September 30, 2014)

Southern California Edison Rates 1999 to 2009 

Tiered electric-rate policies are driving California homeowners that use a lot of electricity into rooftop solar installations and should be ended, says one of California’s top energy experts.…

“As currently drafted, the carbon emission rates that EPA proposes for Virginia are arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.”

“Virginia’s compliance with the Proposed Regulation, as currently drafted, will be expensive and will be paid for by Virginia residents and businesses. Contrary to the claim that ‘rates will go up, but bills will go down’, experience and costs in Virginia make it extremely unlikely that either electric rates or bills in Virginia will go down as a result of the Proposed Regulation.”

“Additional near-term generator retirements caused by the Proposed Regulation will compound existing, unresolved reliability concerns in the Commonwealth.”

– Staff of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, Comments to U.S. EPA, October 14, 2014.

The anti-intellectual, postmodernist arguments for free-lunch/lunch-you-are-paid-to-eat CO2-emission reductions regulation, or in the U.S. EPA’s words, “‘rates will go up, but bills will go down,” sooner or later must hit the shoals of reality.…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is a wealth of energy and environmental resources.

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

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Greed Energy Economics:

As Hawaii Prepares for Utility Reform, the State’s Solar Industry Sheds 3,000 Workers

The Dumb Ways We Subsidize Renewable Energy

Paying wind developers to not produce electricity, etc.…

“Each year, the Progressive Policy Institute publishes its list of ‘investment heroes’ – non-financial companies that are investing the most in the U.S. economy. Of the 25 companies that make up the Institute’s ‘investment heroes’ list this year, 10 are involved to some degree in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas or involved in energy distribution and power.”

“For decades now, the United States has pursued energy policies based on the fear of scarcity. The thinking in Washington, D.C. – and even at some energy companies – was that reviving domestic energy production was a dream…. Now, we need energy policies that are designed for this new era of abundance.”

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson recently addressed the Greater Houston Partnership on the State of Energy. He paid homage to Houston, where ExxonMobil’s far flung operations are about to be brought together at one campus.…