Alternet - A recent trend has seen utilities deciding that since they haven't been able to beat back the rise of rooftop solar companies, they might as well join them (or at least steal their business model). But the Walton Family, owners of Walmart as well as a stake in a manufacturer of solar arrays for utilties, aren't ready to give up the fight.
A new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has found that, through their Walton Family Foundation, the Waltons have given $4.5 million dollars to groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and Americans for Prosperity—groups that are attacking renewable energy policies at the state level and, specifically, pushing for fees on rooftop solar installations. The head of ALEC has even gone so far as to denigrate owners of rooftop solar installations as “freeriders.”
But support for groups seeking to halt the rise of clean energy is only half the story. According to Vice News, the Waltons own a 30% stake in First Solar, a company that makes solar arrays for power plants as “an economically attractive alternative or complement to fossil fuel electricity generation,” per its 2013 annual report, which also identifies “competitors who may gain in profitability and financial strength over time by successfully participating in the global rooftop PV solar market” as a threat to First Solar's future profitability.
Perhaps it was that threat to its long-term strategic plan that led First Solar CEOJames Hughes to publish an op-ed in the Arizona Republic voicing his support for a proposal by Arizona Public Service, the state's biggest energy utility, to charge owners of rooftop solar installations a fee of $50 - $100 a month, which would effectively wipe out any economic benefits of generating one's own power. A compromise was eventually reached to adopt a lower fee of roughly $5 per household, but even that has had a chilling effect on the growth of rooftop solar in Arizona, as residential solar installations subsequently dropped 40% in APS territory.
3 comments:
A fusion power plant has been designed at Washington (State) university. The designers are concerned with patents now. Think of the forces arrayed against fusion power and the fates of the corporations when and if plants are built: Oil: done; Coal: done; Natural Gas: done; Nuclear fission: done. Of course hydrogen is non-renewable, but that doesn't matter because it is the most common element in the universe.
Only news is being suppressed so far. Just wait.
....And then Wal-mart imploded, leaving America with hundreds of empty stores, many of which were converted into homeless shelters.
Walmart only wants it when they benefit from it. They like to take advantage of every government subsidy they can, so they can shortchange what is their responsibility to pay, and notice how in the first paragraph, they want to end tax incentives for solar power. Kelvin from SolarPanelSuit
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