If you get the electric Co-ops Arkansas Living Magazine youd believe that solar (or other renewable energy sources) will never be able to compete with centralized power companies, such as Arkansas Electric Co-ops or Entergy. Theyre the problem. Know your enemy. Incremental improvements have been slowly but surely pushing solar power toward mainstream viability for a few decades now. Its getting to the point where the established utilities are worried about the financial hit theyre likely to take — and theyre working to prevent it. These solar households are now buying less and less electricity, but the utilities still have to manage the costs of connecting them to the grid. Indeed, a new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argues that this trend could put utilities in dire financial straits. If rooftop solar were to grab 10 percent of the market over the next decade, utility earnings could decline as much as 41 percent. The utilities are throwing their weight behind political groups seeking to end subsidies for solar and make net metering policies go away. Studies suggest that if solar adoption continues growing at its current rate, incumbents will be forced to raise their prices, which will only persuade more people to switch to solar. vox/2014/9/29/6849723/solar-power-net-metering-utilities-fight-states
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:35:45 +0000