Dialog, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
Sunday, December 4, 2011
PRO: Rate structure should be economically sustainable
San Diego is blessed with tremendous solar resources. Our climate and the way our region’s energy use peaks during hot afternoons make San Diego ground zero for the nation’s solar revolution. The energy source is clean and has tremendous environmental benefits.
California’s current solar marketplace on its face is pretty simple. Customers invest in a rooftop system, connect to the grid and the meter spins backwards when they are producing more power than they consume. When the sun goes down, they use the grid and the meter spins forward. At the end of the month, the utility gives solar customers the energy credit, and they pay the lowest tiered energy costs for the power they draw from the system...
Bruvold is president of the National University System Institute of Policy Research, a think tank focused on San Diego’s economic competitiveness.