Proposed solar power tax brings protesters to downtown SLO: ‘Don’t tax the sun’

Protesters chanting “Don’t tax the sun” gathered in front of PG&E’s office in downtown San Luis Obispo on Tuesday morning.

The Solar Rights Alliance picked San Luis Obispo as the fourth stop on its Don’t Tax the Sun statewide tour, having previously visited San Diego, Coachella Valley and Bakersfield.

The protests oppose a tax targeted at net energy metering currently being considered by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Net energy metering allows solar customers to receive credit for the excess energy they produce and add to the grid, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Tuesday’s protest was attended by around 80 people — including utility customers who own solar panels, employees of local solar companies and other solar power advocates

Speakers included former San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon, who left that post to work as the senior public affairs director of Let’s Green California.

“It looks like we won’t have any real meaningful climate support from the federal level,” Harmon told The Tribune. “Which is all the more reason states — and particularly California, who has always been a leader on environmental issues — really must take the most ambitious policies to encourage and support everyone to transition to the cleanest possible energy.”

Other speakers at the event included Carter Lavin of the California Solar and Storage Association, Esperanza Vielma of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water and Destiny Rivas of the San Joaquin Urban Native Council.

Representatives of two San Luis Obispo County solar companies — Glen Covert of A.M. Sun Solar in San Luis Obispo and Frank Scotti of Solarponic in Atascadero — also spoke.

Rivas said that, during PG&E blackouts, her community sometimes goes six or seven days without power.

Utilities companies have “been attacking our low-income communities,” Rivas said. “So what we’re doing to take care of those people was .... telling them to go sign up for solar. We’ve had a solar initiative.”

Speeches were followed by a march to the doors of PG&E’s office, where Lavin delivered a petition signed by 16,000 Californians in support of solar energy. The envelope was addressed to the utility company’s CEO, Patricia Poppe.

No one from the PG&E office acknowledged the protesters.

How would tax affect solar power customers?

The current net energy metering program, known as NEM2, was adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2016.

Customers of PG&E, Socal Gas and Electric and San Diego Gas and Electric who produce their own solar power must pay a one-time interconnection fee as well as charges on each kilowatt per hour of electricity consumed from the grid, according to the CPUC.

“Currently, when somebody goes solar, they can expect about a five- to seven-year return on investment,” said Lavin, director of membership at the California Solar and Storage Association. “This new proposal would almost double that. Most people are not going to go solar with that long of a payback.”

According to the California Solar and Storage Association, the CPUC proposes implementing a tax of approximately $700 per year for solar power customers and cutting their solar energy credit by about 80%.

That proposal is now under reevaluation, though similar elements are still being considered, according to the solar power group said.

The industry would also shrink by about 80%, Lavin said, meaning the state would lose a lot of solar power-related jobs.

The CPUC published a fact sheet on Dec. 13, addressing the changes being proposed to net metering, which are labeled as a modernization of the current program.

“The line between the CPUC and (utility companies) is really, really blurry,” Solar Rights Alliance executive director Dave Rosenfeld said. “Their justification is that rooftop solar is why everyone’s utility bills are going up. And it’s a lie. The opposite is true, that actually rooftop solar is helping to reduce the cost of the electricity grid and save all ratepayers money.”

The Don’t Tax the Sun protest tour will continue through July, with stops in Fresno, Santa Cruz and Chico.