Editorial: Nevada slipping in its embrace of personal and economic freedom

Nevada ranking 12th in the nation in terms of economic and personal freedom, according to the Cato Institute, is not too shabby — until you notice that we’ve fallen from No. 5 in 2000.

Having legalized gambling and county-option legalized prostitution probably helps in the personal freedom category, but we’ve been marked down for continually raising taxes and having too many business regulations and license requirements.

But what is really frightening is that Cato’s Freedom in the 50 States only analyzed economic data through 2014, which fails to take into account that the 2015 Legislature passed, and the governor signed, a record-setting $1.5 billion increase in taxes. Who knows how far Nevada will fall once that data is taken into account?

Cato analysts scored all 50 states on more than 200 standards including fiscal policies, as well as personal and regulatory freedom.

Cato points out that Nevada state-level taxes have risen from a low of 4.9 percent of personal income in 2009 to about 5.9 percent in 2014. Local taxes have also risen. Also government debt is well above average and rising — from 22 percent of income in 2000, state and local debt in 2014 stood at more than 26 percent of income. That is probably partly due to the $40 billion in unfunded liability for the public employee pension fund.

The analysts mistakenly credited the state Supreme Court for some of the rise in taxation. “Nevada’s fiscal policy has worsened over time, a fact that might have something to do with a 2003 Nevada Supreme Court decision setting aside part of the state constitution, which required a supermajority for tax increases,” the Cato piece reports, neglecting to notice that the court repudiated that Guinn v. Legislature decision three years later. So we’ll just have to blame the lawmakers and executive branch.

We lost freedom points in the area of education, Cato notes, “Nevada was one of the worst states for educational freedom. Private schools are tightly regulated, facing mandatory state approval, mandatory teacher licensing, and detailed private school curriculum control. However, our index does not take account of the educational savings account plan passed in 2015, which in 2014 would have raised its educational freedom score to average.”

Cato did not note that the education savings accounts have yet to be implemented due to litigation questioning the law’s constitutionality.

Nevadans should be concerned about how we will rank in future analyses of our embrace of fundamental freedoms, because freedom requires equal applications of the laws and taxation. The Nevada Constitution dictates a “uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation.”

But the state has been handing out tax breaks and tax credits and outright grants to companies that curry favor with public officials, leaving the rest of the taxpayers to foot the bill for public services needed by those favored few. Hardly conducive to freedom or equality.

Tesla Motors was given $1.3 billion in tax breaks and credits for its new battery manufacturing plant near Sparks that opened recently with much fanfare and at a much smaller size than promised. One critic called it a Potemkin Village.

Then there were millions in similar credits for Chinese-financed Faraday Future, which says it will build an electric car manufacturing plant, though it does not even have a prototype.

And where’s the fairness in a $1.2 million grant to solar panel installer SolarCity, which has since shutdown most operations in the state?

Nevada was once known as a live and let live state. We need to return to those values — letting people make choices for themselves and keep their own money, rather than send it to Carson City to dole out to others.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

http://www.freedominthe50states.org/?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=e5db0f6450-Cato-E-Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-e5db0f6450-141898598&mc_cid=e5db0f6450&mc_eid=afbca91773

Solar panel owners are subsidizing other power customers, not the other way around

Solar panels being installed on a Nevada home in 2015. (R-J photo by Jeff Scheid)

I never could figure out why, when NV Energy jacked up the rates charged to residential solar panel owners because they were somehow being subsidized by non-panel owners, the rates for non-panel owners were not concomitantly reduced and yet the move was somehow going to be revenue neutral.

Two reports out this week say NV Energy’s subsidy contention is bogus, and, in fact, solar panel owners are providing a net benefit to power customers in general.

A report from The Brookings Institution notes that Nevada’s net metering rates — that change solar panels from being an asset to a liability — have caused the installation of new solar panels to plummet 92 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

The Brookings report, by Mark Muro and Devashree Saha, asks and answers what it calls the burning question:

Does net metering really represent a net cost shift from solar-owning households to others? Or does it in fact contribute net benefits to the grid, utilities, and other ratepayer groups when all costs and benefits are factored in? As to the answer, it’s getting clearer (even if it’s not unanimous). Net metering — contra the Nevada decision — frequently benefits all ratepayers when all costs and benefits are accounted for, which is a finding state public utility commissions, or PUCs, need to take seriously as the fight over net metering rages in states like Arizona, California, and Nevada.  Regulators everywhere need to put in place processes that fairly consider the full range of benefits (as well as costs) of net metering as well as other policies as they set and update the policies, regulations, and tariffs that will play a critical role in determining the extent to which the distributed solar industry continues to grow.

As I have said before the problem is that monopoly power companies have an infrastructure cost that remains no matter how much power it sells. The only difference between a solar panel owner and a customer who conserves and is efficient is that the solar panel output can be measured. NV Energy calculates that solar panel owners were avoiding paying their fair share of infrastructure costs — to the tune of about $52 a month.

But solar panel installer SolarCity and the Natural Resources Defense Council calculate that rooftop solar provides a net benefit to all Nevadans of 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour in actual costs and as much as 3.4 cents per kWh if you include benefits to the environment, which is admittedly hard to calculate.

The report by Brookings also notes that a 2014 study prepared for the Nevada Public Utilities Commission found that net metering provided $36 million in benefits to all NV Energy customers and over the 25-year lifetime of the panels the net benefit amounted to $166 million — just for the ones installed so far.

A 2015 study from Maine said the value of rooftop solar was $0.33 per kWh compared to the average retail price of $0.13 per kWh. “The study concludes that solar power provides a substantial public benefit because it reduces electricity prices due to the displacement of more expensive power sources …” Brookings concluded.

The report goes on to list numerous other studies that found solar panels benefited power customers in general rather than being a drain.

Brookings addresses the infrastructure cost issues by recommending decoupling. The NRDC says this is done by regulators of private utilities using “modest, regular rate reconciliations every year to compensate for under- or over-collection of fixed costs during the previous year. More than half the states have adopted decoupling mechanisms for either electric or natural gas utilities as a necessary (but not sufficient) part of the policies that allow utilities to invest in the cheapest and cleanest energy resource: energy efficiency.”

Though 15 states have adopted decoupling, according to Brookings, states like Nevada, which has not, are fighting net metering the hardest. “Typically, decoupling has been used as a mechanism to encourage regulated utilities to promote energy efficiency for their customers,” the Brookings authors say. “However, it can also be used as a tool to incentivize net metering by breaking the link between utility profits and utility sales and encouraging maximum solar penetration. Advocates of decoupling note that it is even more effective when paired with time-of-use pricing and minimum monthly billing.”

 

Mt. Wheeler Power Co., which covers all of White Pine County as well as parts of Nye, Elko and Eureka counties and parts of three counties in Utah, still provides net metering rates for its customers with solar panels. The current rate is 3 cents per kWh but that is expected to increase when the company’s wholesale provider is expected to increase rates, a company executive said.

Valley Electric Association, which services Nevada power customers along the California border from Mineral County to Sandy Valley in Clark County, shows on its website that it also provides net metering rates.

Subcommittee of energy task force agrees rooftop solar panel rates should be grandfathered

Perhaps there is hope for rooftop solar panel owners yet to save their investments.

According to an article posted on the Las Vegas Sun’s website Thursday afternoon, but not deemed worthy of being printed today, the Governor’s New Energy Industry Task Force Technical Advisory Committee on Distributed Generation and Storage agreed in principle to allow current residential solar panel owners’ rates to be grandfathered until 2035.

The agenda for the meeting of that panel Thursday included a presentation by solar panel installer SolarCity and discussion of the value of distributed solar generation, as well as a review of alternatives to the net metering rates passed by the Public Utilities Commission at the beginning of the year.

The PUC voted to “transition” to new net metering rates over 12 years and eventually increase the connection fee for solar panel customers from $12.75 to $38.51 a month and cut the credit for power uploaded to the grid from 11 cents per kWh to 2.6 cents — to the point some solar panels owners could be paying more for power than neighbors without solar panels.

The PUC swallowed NV Energy’s bogus argument that it is paying rooftop solar power generators 11 cents per kWh for excess energy, which is more than twice the 4.4 cents per kWh the utility company pays for energy on the open market. But that 4.4 cents is the 24-hour average. Solar panels generate extra power during the peak period when rates can easily exceed 30 cents per kWh.

The Sun article said Thursday’s agreement is a first step toward possible legislation repeal of the PUC action, so any change probably won’t come until June 2017 at the close of the legislative session in Carson City.

SolarCity told the panel that it plans to release a report in the coming weeks showing that solar panel owners are not being subsidized by non-panel owners to the tune of $52 a month, as NV Energy contends, but rather benefit all ratepayers by at least two cents per kWh.

In February, The Alliance for Solar Choice told the PUC that each residential solar panel owner provides a net benefit of $12.08 per month to NV Energy customers.

The technical panel is to continue discussion of the topic at a May 18 meeting.

 

Letter writer makes a point but fails to go far enough

Hyperloop vision or pipe dream?

Tom O’Farrell of Boulder City makes a good point in his letter published in today’s morning newspaper.

He needles Gov. Brian Sandoval for comparing the Hyperloop project at Apex — basically a proposed pneumatic tube that might someday carry passengers and cargo at a high rate of speed — to the first powered flight of the Wright brothers. The writer points out: “The Wright brothers independently conducted all their research and development; designed, built and modified their aircraft; and tested at facilities they built and maintained in North Carolina, while maintaining their businesses and supporting their family.”

On the other hand, the Hyperloop is being handed a $10 million incentive package from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development for its effort. “That’s hardly analogous,” O’Farrell says.

Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

Or perhaps it is.

Just more than a century ago the federal government gave a $70,000 grant to Dr. Samuel Langley, the head of the Smithsonian, to build a heavier-than-air flying machine. After two of his planes crashed on take-off in the Potomac, Langley complained he was inadequately funded.

If only the federal government had given him more funding, he could have built a whole fleet of planes that could not fly — just like the windmills and solar farms and electric cars and Hyperloop facilities being built today that for the next 20 to 30 years will never fly in the free market but will be carried on the backs of taxpayers and ratepayers because the government, which prints money or takes it from the people and redistributes it, will defy the laws of physics and economics.

In December 1903, without federal grants, the Wright brothers flew their plane at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Also pay no heed to the fact that Hyperloop is being pushed by Elon Musk, whose Tesla Motors battery factory plan got $1.3 billion in tax credits and abatements from Nevada lawmakers and whose moribund SolarCity has been promised $1.2 million from the GOED and is being paid for creating jobs while it is laying off workers.

 

 

 

State hands out more money for hiring people to company that is laying off workers

Just open the window and throw money into the wind.

This past week the Governor’s Office of Economic Development gave another $400,000 to SolarCity for creating jobs in Nevada — two months after the company laid off 550 employees and stopped doing its primary function, installing rooftop solar panels, because the Public Utilities Commission so screwed up the rates for solar panels as to make them financially unfeasible.

In March 2013 the GOED promised SolarCity $1.2 million if it would open operations in Nevada — to be paid in $400,000 increments. This past week’s check was the second.

In a press release, in which the company’s name is misspelled through out, the GOED never mentions the PUC action or its resulting consequences.

Steve Hill, the director of the GOED, said, “The grant dollars are exclusive to the hiring of full-time workers at the Company’s financial services division, and are not related to the installation side of the Company’s business.”

Though what they will finance, if they are no longer installing solar panels, is unclear.

The money comes from a $10 million so-called Catalyst Fund.

The Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation, a division of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, has sued the state, saying such handouts violate the Gift Clause in the state Constitution.

The Nevada Constitution specifically states: “The State shall not donate or loan money, or its credit, subscribe to or be, interested in the Stock of any company, association, or corporation, except corporations formed for educational or charitable purposes.”

There were already several tax-paying solar panel installing companies in the state when the state handed tax money to SolarCity to come here and compete with them — until the PUC derailed the gravy train.

Throwing good money after bad?

 

 

Newspaper column: Lawsuit challenges practice of state gifts to private companies

Earlier this month the Nevada Supreme Court heard arguments on procedural matters in a case that seeks to have declared unconstitutional the state’s practice of handing out gifts to businesses that agree to operate in Nevada and create jobs.

The plaintiff in the case is Michael Little, owner of a company that converts recycled landscape trimmings into biomass, a renewable energy source. The suit grew out of the fact the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) gave $1.2 million to one of his competitors, SolarCity, a company that installs solar panels. That was part of a $10 million Catalyst Fund.

Plaintiff Michael Little

The suit claims the gift to SolarCity violates the Gift Clause of the state Constitution, which prohibits the state donating or loaning money to any company. Little is represented by Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation (CJCL), a division of the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

Joseph Becker, chief legal officer and director of the CJCL, said he is pleased the state Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on whether Little has “standing” as a taxpayer to pursue the lawsuit.

“It seemed to me the court was very sympathetic to our plight, and that is that absent taxpayer standing it’s very difficult to keep a state government within its constitutional constraints,” Becker said in a recent interview. “Forty-six states have at least some form of taxpayer standing, three explicitly have rejected taxpayer standing, and one state, up until now, has no taxpayer standing jurisprudence whatsoever, according to legal scholars, and that state, of course, is the very one in which we find ourselves. Given the nature of the questions, I’m optimistic that they see this as problem and they’re willing to address it.”

A ruling giving Little standing as a taxpayer would send the case back to district court to be heard on its merits.

Becker explained that CJCL is in the business of trying to set precedent that serves the public interest, and having the Supreme Court say a taxpayer has standing to challenge unconstitutional tax expenditures is very important.

The Supreme Court hearing gave Becker the chance to point out to the court the fact that the voters have on three occasions rejected attempts to amend the state Constitution and remove the Gift Clause — in 1992, 1996 and again in 2000 by wide majorities.

Gift clauses started appearing in state constitutions in the mid-1800s after state governments in the East invested heavily in private companies building infrastructure such as canals and railroads that went bust. The states of Indiana, Illinois and Michigan were bankrupted as a result.

The Nevada Constitution specifically states: “The State shall not donate or loan money, or its credit, subscribe to or be, interested in the Stock of any company, association, or corporation, except corporations formed for educational or charitable purposes.”

“We needed a vote of the people to change the Constitution, which never happened, but now suddenly its OK for the state to do something that up until now, even they insisted, would take a constitutional amendment,” Becker said bemusedly. “I tried to make that point and I think did,” noting the justices asked for citations about the balloting.

Becker also noted the very timeliness of the case in light of the fact SolarCity, after drawing $400,000 of its allocated $1.2 million, announced just before Christmas that it is ceasing new operations in Nevada and laying off 550 employees after the state Public Utilities Commission drastically increased the connection fees for solar panel owners and slashed the amount paid for solar power uploaded to the grid.

Becker noted his organization has been arguing all along that the reason these Gift Clause provisions were put in Western constitutions is because of the experience of those bankrupted Eastern states, where taxpayers found themselves having to bail out government spending boondoggles that benefited some private party that was somehow friendly with the people in office.

“I pointed out to the court that this is exactly the kind of problem that this provision was intended to prevent and the voters didn’t want that changed,” the attorney said. “It is the court’s job to protect against the tyranny of the majority, but here we’re protecting against the power elite.”

Pure cronyism.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

 

PUC will rehear solar panel grandfathering argument they originally ignored

Next week the PUC will reconsider its decision to tear up the net metering tariffs for residential owners of solar panels and grandfather the rates for existing solar customers.

The draft order is based on arguments the commission had before it when it made the decision to go forward with new rates, but completely ignored. The Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection strongly argued that current solar panel owners should be grandfathered because they had been enticed by the state to do so under the premise they could recoup their expenses in a timely manner, but the new rates renege on that promise.

SolarCity installers

PUC had decided that over four years it would raise the basic connection fee for solar panel customers from $12.75 to $38.51 and cut the credit for power uploaded to the grid from 11 cents per kWh to 2.6 cents — turning what is currently an asset into a liability.

The rehearing appears to only address the matter of grandfathering current panel owners and would do nothing to change the rates for anyone dumb enough to install panels in the future, which mean those thousands of solar panel installer jobs are permanently lost. The state offered one such company, SolarCity, $1.2 million in taxpayer money to open in Nevada and now it is leaving, along with 550 jobs so far.

Here is a key section the draft order:

Previous coverage of this topic:

New PUC net metering rules are unfairly discriminatory and retroactively applied

How to be fair in setting rates for electric power … or not

PUC is selective in data choice in deciding solar panel tariffs

PUC votes unanimously to screw over solar panel owners

PUC staff proposes reneging on contracts with current solar panel owners

Class-action lawsuit filed to overturn new solar panel tariffs

Tell us again, Mr. President, about those rooftop solar jobs

PUC shrugs off impact of new tariffs

Rooftop solar panel owners may be facing a huge math problem

NV Energy should pay more for power from rooftop solar panels, not less

Dueling editorials with opposite stances, yet both are fundamentally wrong

Newspaper column: Nevada is killing jobs it spent tax money to attract (Updated)

Obama announces new loans for projects Nevada has halted

Today’s Review-Journal account.

 

Newspaper column: Nevada is killing jobs it spent tax money to attract (Updated)

Sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Two years ago the Governor’s Office of Economic Development doled out $1.2 million to entice rooftop solar panel installer SolarCity to open an office in Nevada and create jobs.

This past week the governor-appointed Public Utilities Commission became the Governor’s Office of Economic Dismemberment, issuing rules that make SolarCity’s business model no longer viable in Nevada. The next day the company announced it is shutting down most operations and laying off workers.

“The people of Nevada have consistently chosen solar, but yesterday their state government decided to end customer choice, damage the state’s economy, and jeopardize thousands of jobs,” SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive said in a press release. “The PUC has protected NV Energy’s monopoly, and everyone else will lose. We have no alternative but to cease Nevada sales and installations, but we will fight this flawed decision on behalf of our Nevada customers and employees.”

SolarCity is run by Elon Musk, whose Tesla Motors was given a $1.3 billion package of tax credits and abatements to build an electric car battery plant near Sparks. All in the name of creating jobs.

Solar panels being installed. (R-J photo)

The three-member panel ordered NV Energy to start charging so-called net metering customers with solar panels an additional connection charge and to slash the credit for power uploaded to the grid from the retail rate of more than 11 cents per kilowatt-hour to the wholesale rate of about 5 cents — stretching out for years the length of time it will take for current solar panels to provide a return on investment and possibly making it impossible for new installations to ever pencil out. NV Energy must now provide the actual rates by Jan. 1.

According to Investor’s Business Daily (IBD), net metering is required in 44 states but is a thorn in the side of utility companies, which can buy renewable energy cheaper from utility-scale solar plants instead of giving credit for rooftop solar at the same rate as retail. Solar panel owners contend they are not “selling” power, but are banking it, uploading power to the grid when the sun shines and withdrawing power when the sun goes down.

The utility companies claim they make hundreds of dollars less each year providing service to net metering customers, and that is somehow unfair to other ratepayers.

Oddly, state law requires 25 percent of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources by the year 2025, and the state has for years required NV Energy to provide subsidies to cover the cost of installing rooftop solar panels, a cost passed on in the form of higher power bills to all ratepayers.

Businesses that install rooftop panels had warned that this decision could cost the state 6,000 jobs. SolarCity itself has 2,000 employees here, according to a Nov. 30 press release announcing a new training center.

Bryan Miller, a vice president of solar panel installer Sunrun and head of The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC), told IBD there will be litigation challenging the PUC decision because state law requires Nevada to encourage renewable energy investment.

“We believe the (Nevada Public Utilities Commission), appointed by Governor Sandoval, has done the exact opposite today,” he said. “In a similar situation in Wisconsin, the commission acted without evidence and attempted to eliminate the solar industry. TASC sued and TASC won, and TASC expects to do the same here.”

There are an estimated 17,000 net metering customers in Nevada.

SolarCity’s Rive said of those customers, “Most disturbing is the PUC’s decision to retroactively sabotage existing solar customers’ investments by changing the rules on them. The Nevada government encouraged these people to go solar with financial incentives and pro-solar policies, and now the same government is punishing them for their decision with new costs they couldn’t have foreseen. These actions are certainly unethical, unprecedented, and possibly unlawful.” Actually, NV Energy did not initially propose to make the changes retroactive. That came from the PUC staff.

Net metering customer Louise Helton told the Las Vegas newspaper the rate change will cost her more than $600 a year and will add more than $12,000 to the cost of her solar system over the useful life of the system.

This is what happens when the state picks winners and losers and keeps changing the rulebook.

NV Energy is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which cut nearly 10 percent of its Nevada jobs after acquiring the company in 2013.

It is all about jobs, right?

(Disclosure: This writer is a net metering customer of NV Energy.)

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Update: On Wednesday the PUC posted a 104-page filing that outlines the new net metering tariffs it plans to impose. It immediately raises the connection fee for the residential and small business owners of solar panels from $12.75 to $17.90 today and to $38.51 in 2020.

It immediately cuts the credit for each kWh of power uploaded to the grid from 11 cents to 9 cents and slashes it to 2.6 cents in 2020, half the daily levelized rate NV Energy says it pays for wholesale power now. And never mind that the power is uploaded in the heat of the day when wholesale power costs many times more.

A back of the napkin calculation suggests that new rates will add about $60 to $70 to a net metering bill for a 5-kilowatt array by 2020, wiping out more than two-thirds of the monthly savings or more.

By 2020 some owners of older solar panel arrays, which lose generating power over time, might have a liability instead of an asset on their hands, costing more to haul the panels to the dump than they save on power bills.

Yes, the standard net metering contract contains this clause: “Utility’s distribution tariffs may be amended by the PUCN at any time.” Who could have anticipated this kind of bait and switch when the powers that be were all preaching green energy all the time to save the planet?

What a difference three weeks makes in the uncertain world of Nevada political favoritism

With sunny-weather friends like these, who needs …

In a Nov. 30 press release a Nevada company boasted about opening a job training center that would train 4,000 workers a year in the skills needed for its industry.

The press release quoted assorted Nevada elected officials heaping praise on the company:

“I’m proud to celebrate the opening of (the company’s) new training center, which will make Nevada the regional hub for training workers in the jobs of the 21st century,” said Governor Brian Sandoval. “Our homegrown … industry has already created over 6,000 good Nevada jobs, and has tremendous potential to continue driving innovation, economic diversification, and opportunity in the Silver State.”

Senator Harry Reid, whose office presented a certificate to commemorate the event, celebrated the opening saying, “Thank you for your contributions to the … industry in Southern Nevada.”

“(This) is the future of Southern Nevada,” said Representative Dina Titus of Nevada’s First Congressional District. “(The company’s) new workforce training center will provide opportunities for people from across the region to learn new skills, contribute to our economy, and build a better … world for generations to come.”

Senator Aaron Ford, Democratic Leader of the Nevada Senate, Senator Ruben Kihuen, and other state and local officials joined (the company) leadership to cut the ribbon at the new facility today.

“The opening of (the company’s) Regional Training Center means more good jobs in one of Nevada’s most important and forward-thinking industries,” said Senator Aaron Ford, Democratic Leader of the Nevada State Senate. “Growing our … industry is not only good for our economy, but it will help our state continue to move towards a … future. I’m proud to help welcome this facility to Las Vegas and, more particularly, to Senate District 11.”

Oh yes, “the company” was SolarCity and the training would be in how to install rooftop solar panels. That was until three weeks after the press release came out. That was when the Public Utilities Commission changed the rates for so-called net metering customers of NV Energy — adding a delivery surcharge and slashing the credit residential and small business solar panel owners receive for uploading power to the grid.

The day after the decision, SolarCity announced it is ceasing installation work in Nevada. In that press release three weeks earlier, the company said it already employed 2,000 Nevadans. There were reportedly 6,000 people employed in rooftop solar panel installation in the state.

According to GreenTechMedia.com, The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) calculated that NV Energy’s new rates would add $40 to monthly bills of most solar customers, who currently save only $11 to $15 a month on their electricity bills. Do the math.

SolarCity is the same company that just two years ago received a $1.2 million taxpayer handout from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development for opening operations in Nevada.

To add insult to injury, that Nov. 30 press release contained this boiler plate disclaimer:

This release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding future hiring and company expansion, and customer cost savings. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved, if at all. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward looking statements.

Among those risks and uncertainties is the possibility that fawning politicians will pull the rug out from under you.

What a fine fettle the fickle finger of favoritism has foisted on this former friend.

Ribbon cutting a new training facility (Press release photo)

How Nevada tries to attract jobs and then kill those same jobs

As my ol’ Pappy used to say, sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Or maybe the Public Utilities Commission should be renamed the Governor’s Office of Economic Dismemberment. On Tuesday, the three-member panel decided to abrogate the contracts that thousands of residential and small business owners made by installing rooftop or backyard solar panels. The PUC ordered NV Energy to start charging so-called net energy metering (NEM) customers a connection charge and to slash the credit for power uploaded to the grid from the retail rate to the wholesale rate — stretching out for years the length of time it will take for current solar panels to provide a return on investment and possibly making it impossible for new installations to ever pencil out. NV Energy must now provide the actual rates by Jan. 1.

Investor’s Business Daily, in a front page article, reports solar panel installers are threatening to pull out of Nevada, a move that would cost an estimated 6,000 jobs.

One of those companies doing the threatening is SolarCity, which, lest we forget, was enticed to open operations in Nevada just two years ago with a $1.2 million handout from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. SolarCity is run by Elon Musk, whose Tesla Motors was given a $1.3 billion package of tax credits, abatements and infrastructure to build an electric car battery plant near Sparks.

According to IBD, SolarCity stock fell 6.8 percent Tuesday following the PUC decision but rebounded 5 percent this morning.

Bryan Miller, a vice president of solar panel installer Sunrun and head of The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC), told IBD there will be litigation challenging the PUC decision because state law requires Nevada to encourage renewable energy investment.

“We believe the (Nevada Public Utilities Commission), appointed by Governor (Brian) Sandoval, has done the exact opposite today,” he said. “In a similar situation in Wisconsin, the commission acted without evidence and attempted to eliminate the solar industry. TASC sued and TASC won, and TASC expects to do the same here.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports there are more than 17,000 net metering customers in Nevada.

The PUC ruling would allow net metering customers eventually to switch to time-of-use (TOU) tariffs, but most have not had smart meters long enough to be able to calculate whether that would be beneficial. Under TOU, power rates vary depending on time of day, higher in the hot afternoons in the summer for both purchasing and selling.

Net metering customer Louise Helton told the R-J the rate change cost her more than $600 a year and will add more than $12,000 to the cost of her solar system over the useful life of the system.

According to the website Protect Nevada Ratepayers, billionaire Warren Buffett’s NV Energy has made $345 million in profits in Nevada this year.

According to IBD, net metering is required in 44 states but is a thorn in the side of utility companies, which can buy renewable energy cheaper from utility-scale solar plants instead of giving credit for rooftop solar at the same rate as retail. But solar panel owners say they are not “selling” power, but are banking it.

With net metering, conventional power users must pay an extra cost, the utilities claim.

The state also required NV Energy to provide subsidies to cover the cost of installing rooftop solar panels, a cost passed on in the form of higher power bills to all ratepayers.