AZ regulator chews out rooftop solar industry

January 6, 2015 | By Doug Peeples

During the swearing in of two new Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) members this week, outgoing Chairman Bob Stump encapsulated the less than warm and fuzzy relationship between regulators and the rooftop solar industry with some pointed remarks.

Credit: los_ojos_pardos

In late December, the commission voted to allow the state's largest utilities, Arizona Public Service Company (APS) and Tucson Electric Power Company (TEP) to begin doing business in the residential solar market, albeit to a limited degree and with further restrictions on which customers they could serve. Solar proponents were pleased with the decision because it restricted how active the utilities could be in the market.

But that sentiment certainly would be an exception rather than the rule. As The Republic reported, the ACC has deliberated for years over whether utilities should be required to support solar and questioned how they could survive when rooftop solar cuts into their earnings. And while the ACC has made decisions and concessions favorable to the solar industry and against utilities over the past few years, it also has made decisions the solar industry disliked.

At the swearing in, Stump did not mention the solar industry or rooftop solar by name, although who he directed his remarks to was clear.

"The pursuit of utopian energy policy is folly," The Republic quoted him as saying. "If you are taking government subsidies, you can't balk at government oversight."

He also said those appearing before the commission "need more intellectual honesty."

Stump, who on Monday was replaced as chairman and has two years left of his term, was essentially scolding the industry for overreacting to issues that concerned them.

In late December, the ACC met to reassess the requirement that utilities get some of their electricity from rooftop solar because commission staff has said it is probably no longer necessary for utilities to support the solar industry -- a position the industry, of course, disagreed with. Stump made a similar criticism at that meeting.

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http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/az-regulator-chews-out-rooftop-solar-industry/2015-01-06