EDITORIAL: Get mandates, subsidies out of solar energy business

The feud between NV Energy and the rooftop solar industry is flaring up again. The power provider has proposed a new rate structure that lowers the net metering credit for future rooftop solar customers, who use what they need and sell their surplus power to the utility. Solar proponents have said the proposal will irreparably harm the industry.

As the Review-Journal's Sean Whaley has reported over the past two weeks, under the new rate structure, Nevada Power — NV Energy's Southern Nevada operation — would provide a credit of about 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour, instead of the current 11.6 cents. NV Energy said the credit better reflects the costs all customers have to pay for electric service.

But Bryan Miller, a vice president of rooftop solar company Sunrun Inc. and part of the Alliance for Solar Choice, said the proposal will mean the death of the industry, killing 6,000 jobs. The utility admitted that those who install rooftop solar under the new rate structure could ultimately end up paying more in energy costs when the cost of buying or leasing a system is taken into account.

So who has the high ground here? Nobody. The rooftop solar industry exists solely because of federal tax credits and government-imposed renewable portfolio standards that push power prices higher. NV Energy, meanwhile, wants to crush rooftop solar to ensure demand for its own utility-scale solar generation facilities, which would guarantee the company a return on investment on its capital expenses.

Solar power — and all green energy, for that matter — should be able to compete on its own merits, without federal subsidies and without demanding above-market rates for the power it produces. And NV Energy should be required to provide power to all its customers as cheaply as possible.

If NV Energy operated free from portfolio mandates, and if renewable industries were forced to stand on their own without tax subsidies and said mandates, competition would drive power costs down.

The solution is to get renewable energy off the backs of taxpayers, who are forced to subsidize it and then pay higher prices for the power. Let homeowners who want to generate their own power pay full price for solar panels — and subject their surplus power to market conditions. If NV Energy's customers don't need the solar power, its customers shouldn't have to buy it.

The Public Utilities Commission's decision on the NV Energy plan must be based on what's best for ratepayers.