letters to the editor:

PUC is in the wrong on solar

Wed, Apr 20, 2016 (2 a.m.)

The guest column “Here’s how to restore Nevada’s place in the sun” by Jeremy Susac (Las Vegas Sun, April 14) was a reasoned approach to the issue of allowing solar roofs in Nevada. First, he agrees that owners who installed solar roofs before the net-metering cap should have their one-to-one net metering, which was taken away by the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, restored. That is needed to restore the nationwide, and even international, trust in the state of Nevada.

But Susac lets the PUC off too lightly. He states that “... it was simply doing its job ...” But its actions prove otherwise. Its own independent study by a group in the San Francisco area a few years ago found that the one-to-one net-metering situation was fair. Rather than solicit a new independent study, the PUC admitted that it accepted numbers submitted by NV Energy. The PUC first came forth with a four-year plan in which, in the past year, solar roof owners would receive 2.6 cents a kilowatt hours for excess energy, which NV Energy would sell for 10 cents (sweet deal for NV Energy). As further proof of ineptness, the PUC later changed its plan to a 12-year plan ending at 2.6 cents. If the PUC did a careful study and found the four-year plan to be just, why did it later go to a 12-year plan? Clearly, the PUC did not do a thorough job. We deserve better.

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