Solar workers rally at utility’s doorstep
There was poetry, voice-cracking testimonials, slogans of social justice and a soul-infused rendition of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”
Two hundred or more solar workers and clean-energy enthusiasts gathered at the foot of Sempra Energy’s highrise headquarters in downtown San Diego to protest utility attempts to increase electric bills for rooftop solar customers.
The outdoor, lunch-hour rally was organized by the Sierra Club and California’s main solar trade group, CALSEIA. It was emceed by the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. and his Hip Hop Caucus, a nonprofit organization that adds a musical tempo and human rights vocabulary — and sometimes celebrity luster — to a variety of advocacy campaigns.
Chicago-based performance artist Malik Yusef revved up the crowd with verses about the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy: “We found a loophole, we’re carbon-neutral!”
Testimonials about the environmental and economic virtues of rooftop solar energy came from a 44-year-old solar construction crew leader, a 17-year-old Carlsbad High School senior and one Rancho Bernardo-area homeowner who recently added rooftop solar panels.
San Diego Gas & Electric, a subsidiary of Sempra, believes solar customers don’t pay their fair share of power-grid costs under current tariffs, and has proposed increased fees and additional electricity charges on solar customers.
Rooftop solar providers, from local contractors to national top seller SolarCity, hope to extend current tariff provisions that provide a full retail price credit for homemade electricity.
Phil Salas of San Diego, a project manager for Solar Energy Systems, described the pride and satisfaction that came with leaving a desk job to work on rooftops on clean-energy projects, and his alarm over SDG&E’s solar tariff proposal.
“SDG&E claims that they’re for rooftop solar,” he said. “But they keep introducing things like this to scare people away. Most people think to themselves, ‘Well, I don’t think I want to go solar because they might change the rules.’”
Hearings on solar tariff proposals are underway this week in San Francisco. Amid the deliberations, both SDG&E and the rooftop solar industry are claiming the high moral ground.
Attached in the utility’s new tariff proposal is a request to sink $50 million into solar at schools and multifamily housing in poor communities. The utility would earn a standard rate of return. SolarCity is branching out into projects on multifamily and low-income housing in California.
Mike Hale, a sales representative for SolarCity, attended the rally in an orange T-shirt that read, “We are solar.”
“I believe people in San Diego should be able to have a choice to have clean energy,” he said, “without being penalized or taxed by a large corporation that has had a monopoly since electricity was made available on the West Coast.”
Yearwood, of the Hip Hop Caucus, urged the crowd to act on its convictions.
“This is so important because we understand that either you will shape policy or policy will shape you,” he said.
