Your Solar Bill of Rights, Explained

Published on November 8, 2009 by Tor a.k.a. "Solar Fred".
Categories: Solar Trends.

Photo:Flickr/BrianWright5

On, October 27, 2009, Rhone Resch, the President of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) declared that Americans are entitled to a Solar Bill of Rights©. It’s a great document, but it’s brief, so I’m going to further explain each point with a “Why You Should Care?” explanation underneath. Please share this with your family and friends who’d like to go solar one day.

YOUR SOLAR BILL OF RIGHTS

1. Americans have the right to put solar on their homes or businesses. Restrictive covenants, onerous connection rules, and excessive permitting and inspections fees prevent too many American homes and businesses from going solar.

Why You Should Care: Without this puppy, home owner associations and cities with outdated building codes can continue to make up nonsense rules to prevent you from going solar with red tape and law suits. Excuse me, but access to the power of the sun should not be hijacked from my own home, be it ever so humble.

2. Americans have the right to connect their solar energy system to the grid with uniform national standards. This should be as simple as connecting a telephone or appliance. No matter where they live, consumers should expect a single standard for connecting their system to the electric grid.

Why You Should Care: 99% of American homes don’t need batteries to make solar work at night or cloudy days. Instead, homes can still remain connected to “the grid” (your utility) to get back up power. Problem is, every utility has its own rules and fees for you to get that back-up juice. Electricity is the same everywhere. Ask Ben Franklin. Let’s agree on one standard way to safely connect your solar panels to the grid across America. That will make solar cheaper to install and less frustrating for everyone.

3. Americans have the right to Net Meter and be compensated at the very least with full retail electricity rates. When customers generate excess solar power utilities should pay them consumer at least the retail value of that power.

Why You Should Care: Let’s say you go solar and cover 100% of your electric bill. A year later, your son goes to college. Suddenly, nobody’s forgetting to turn off the lights, and your panels are producing more power than you actually need. Cool! Except many utilities won’t pay you for that extra solar power you’re feeding into the grid. Instead, they swallow your extra solar power and sell it to your neighbors for a profit. They don’t even send you a thank you note. Wouldn’t it be lovely if they had to pay you for that extra power instead of zero-ing out your bill? That’s why you should care.

4. The solar industry has the right to a fair competitive environment. The highly profitable fossil fuel industries have received tens of billions of dollars for decades. The solar energy expects a fair playing field, especially since the American public overwhelmingly supports the development and use of solar.

Why You Should Care: People yell and scream about solar subsidies, and yet, coal, gas, and oil companies all get HUGE tax breaks and other government cash for exploring ways to find more coal and oil so that they can continue to… you know…pollute our air and water, clear cut trees, yada, yada, yada, and reap profits. Solar needs a level playing field. If you’re going to subsidize energy R&D, let’s split the pie equally: 50% for solar, wind, and other modern clean technologies, and 50% for the old 19th century energy solutions. (Perhaps coal companies will use that money to invest in…solar. Wouldn’t that be forward thinking? Nah.)

5. The solar industry has the right to equal access to public lands. America has the best solar resources in the world, yet solar companies have zero access to public lands compared to the 45 million acres used by oil and natural gas companies.

Why You Should Care: This one’s pretty self explanatory, but as in #4, it’s a choice about whether Americans want to give away land to search for more 19th century fuel sources that pollute air, land, and water? Or should we give that same bit of public land for clean, renewable solar and wind farms.  Think about it.

6. The solar industry has the right to interconnect and build new transmission lines. When America updates its electric grid, it must connect the vast solar resources in the Southwest to population centers across the nation.

Why You Should Care: Let’s say we use this public land (#5 above) for solar and wind. Good choice. Thank you. Except to get the most out of it, the electricity has to be transported to cities by new “smart grid” wires and cables. Keep in mind that coal and oil companies use trucks and trains to transport their 19th century fuel sources. I’m not an engineer, but I’m pretty sure coal trains and trucks are a tad slower and less efficient than smart or dumb power lines. So, we’ve got to be able to make that investment in new smart grid power lines. Eventually, it will pay off in both environmental and energy savings.

7. Americans have the right to buy solar electricity from their utility. Consumers have no choice to buy clean, reliable solar energy from their utilities instead of the dirty fossil fuels of the past.

Why You Should Care: You should have a right to say whether you want to support the coal industry or to support clean energy. How? By getting to pick the kind of energy that feeds into your big screens and toasters. If everyone had a choice, I’ll bet there would be a lot of people telling their utilities that they want to buy solar or wind power only. As it stands now, you pretty much get whatever they give you, like it or not.

8. Americans have the right, and should expect, the highest ethical treatment from the solar industry. Consumers should expect the solar energy industry to minimize its environmental impact, provide systems that work better than advertised, and communicate incentives clearly and accurately.

Why You Should Care: I really love this one because I love solar. This is the industry’s way of saying that they’re not going to be like the coal and gas industries. I want solar products to be almost as reliable as the sun, or…at least to live up to their stated warranties. I want easy to understand solar incentives without a lot of hassle or paperwork. And if we’re going to put solar on public lands, Americans have a right to expect that it will be done with minimal effects to the environment.

Okay. I’ve explained why you should care. But remember that these 8 principals aren’t in the law books yet. Far from it. How do we get the Solar Bill of Rights to become a real national law? By spreading the word on Face Book, My Space, Twitter, and email. By blogging about it. By talking about it at dinner and at work. By telling friends to ask questions. The more people are talking about the Solar Bill of Rights, the more politicians will realize that they have to take them seriously. So, please share this any way you can.

Thanks.

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