From 2006 to 2008 residential homeowners added 522 MW in solar power to the grid while utility companies added only 96 MW.
The residential solar market is booming, but that’s causing concern for traditional generation utilities, according to Newsweek.
“The disparity has utilities worried about loosing their grip on the country’s energy industry, and the $130 billion residential electricity market. In some cases, utilities are actually taking direct steps to thwart rooftop solar. Two weeks ago in Colorado, the state’s biggest utility, Xcel, tried passing a surcharge on homes and businesses using rooftop solar power. The rate hike would’ve generated $180 million, $55 million of which was slated to help fund Xcel’s newest coal-fired power plant, the Comanche Unit 3, due to come online this fall. The public went ballistic, and with pressure from Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, the proposal was eventually shelved. In early July, New Mexico’s biggest utility, PNM, filed an official request to dramatically reduce incentives for businesses and homeowners to install solar panels, and is now fighting with state lawmakers over whether it has the right to exclusively own solar panels systems hooked up to its grid. ”
“During California’s last legislative session, Southern California Edison, which serves 13 million residents, pressured a Palm Springs assemblyman to pull a bill he’d introduced that would allow the city of Palm Desert to pay solar users for the excess power they generate.”
The Newseek articles reports that, “The Energy Policy Act of 2005 called for the addition of 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy on public lands by 2015, much of which was thought to be provided by big solar plants. But four years in, things are barely off the ground. The two biggest solar projects in the U.S., which are both in the Nevada desert and came online in 2007, combine to produce just 78 megawatts, 14 of which are used solely to power Nellis Air Force Base. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says that by 2010, 13 utility projects will be under construction on public land in the Southwest, but that’s still years away from generating electricity. California has the country’s most aggressive renewable goal, mandating that 20 percent of its energy come from renewable sources by the end of 2010. Lawmakers are now pushing that to 33 percent by 2020. But at its current pace, it won’t come close to being met. None of Southern California’s four biggest utilities, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric, Pacific Gas and Electric, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, are on target largely, critics say, because they’re too focused on trying to make money off big centralized plants.”