Dan Way writes this morning in Carolina Journal about the “NC Ratepayers Protection Act” (House Bill 745). A snippet:
If the bill passes, the REPS [renewable energy portfolio standards mandate] would remain at 6 percent of state retail sales instead of jumping to 10 percent in 2018 and 12.5 percent in 2021. Purchase requirements would be fixed at 6 percent for electric co-ops and municipalities rather than rising to 10 percent in 2018. The increasing REPS mandate is only one government favor that has given renewable energy producers an advantage over traditional providers — and increased subsidies from taxpayers and ratepayers to the green energy companies.
“Government favors” is it, too. The renewable energy industry is entirely dependent upon government favors to exist. They include:
- Purchase mandates to satisfy REPS requirements
- Must-buy and must-connect mandates under federal law (PURPA): utilities must interconnect any “qualifying facility” (QF) providing renewable energy to their grid and must buy any electricity they generate
- 15-year fixed-rate contracts in NC for QFs
- Very high “avoided cost” rates in NC (the rate utilities must pay renewable energy QFs for the power they are forced to buy from them, on the fiction that it’s the cost they’re saved from paying to produce the power themselves)
- Federal tax incentives
- Federal grants
- Ongoing legacy of the 35 percent state renewable energy tax credit (the credit sunset for new installations at the end of 2016)
- Accelerated depreciation
- Property tax abatements (such as 80 percent property tax abatements for solar facilities in NC)
- Generous “net metering” fees some states require to be paid to ratepayers with rooftop solar installations for excess power they generate, which utilities are forced to buy back to the grid
