PUC May Energize Governor's Solar Plan
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's stalled campaign to put solar energy panels on a million California rooftops could start moving again this week with the help of state regulators.
The California Public Utilities Commission released details Tuesday of its $3.2-billion plan to generate enough solar power over the next 11 years to eliminate the need to build six natural-gas-fired power plants.
The commission is expected to approve the plan at its regular meeting Thursday, resurrecting a key Schwarzenegger initiative that ran afoul of partisan sniping in the Legislature this year.
"The PUC's anticipated action will go a long way toward meeting the people's demands for clean and reliable energy at all times," said Darrel Ng, a Schwarzenegger spokesman.
The cost would be borne by customers of the state's three investor-owned utilities -- Southern California Edison Co., Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co.
Edison estimates that its average residential customer, with monthly usage of 550 kilowatt hours, would pay about 55 cents more a month to help finance subsidies for the new solar system. Industrial, commercial and institutional users would pay proportionately more.
The PUC's plan, which would increase the state's total solar output from 101 megawatts now to 3,000 megawatts by 2017, is expected to provide less than 5% of the state's electricity needs when fully in place.
The total price tag for ratepayers would start at about $400 million in 2006 and decline to just over $100 million in 2016 as the state ratchets down the size of rebates to homes, businesses and public buildings that install photo-voltaic panels that convert sunlight to electricity. Solar advocates, including environmentalists and panel manufacturers, contend that fewer subsidies would be needed over the next decade because prices should drop as technology improves.
Many business groups and academic energy experts counter that a large-scale push for solar power next year is neither the cheapest nor the most competitive way to meet California's burgeoning appetite for energy.
The cost of generating solar power, once the $3-billion subsidy is stripped away, is "three or four times more expensive than [electricity] from gas-fired plants," said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute in Berkeley.
