California Governor Gavin Newsom is a climate champion. Why did he just crush community solar?

www.latimes.com

Column: Gavin Newsom is a climate champion. Why did he just crush community solar?

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19 comments

Because he is not an actual progressive. Hes just a spoiled rich kid who like to pretend to be a progressive.
Because he, and the CPUC, want to make absolutely sure that there is no escape from the investor-owned utilities.
- I think this is the reason why nuclear has become such a hot topic again
“This would mean fewer people paying our for-profit utility companies, and can’t allow that.” - implied corrupt, capitalist dirtbag Alice Reynolds, very unambiguously.
WTF? Newsom is a flaming trash heap lit on fire by the PG&E fires he fucking supported.
The only climate champion is Gretta. Everyone else is a fucking fraud.
- Do you believe that?
  Greta is definitely a brainwashed puppet scam herself. She has never had to do a real days work, pay rent or anything else to make her worthy of the credence she receives. She has been front-womaned by activists and propagandists with money. She earns her living being the face of it all and is propped up by her rich parents.. Nothing she said is new and she's antagonistic for the sake of it. Its not to say there isn't value in her reach. However for me, a spoiled little rich kid travelling the world to preach this and that is as ridiculous as the corpos she bitches about.
  I believe in what she should stand for. I don't believe in her at all and I wouldn't be surprised if all her arrests wasn't just a spin for media.
  
  Mate, I don't give a fuck what you think.
Quite a shit opinion piece honestly. It's a complex issue and the author's argument of "but it's 2024 come on" and then quoting the bible is lame.
The reality is solar is worth next to nothing in CA without storage, community solar is therefore worth next to nothing without storage, and the transmission level connections don't offer the same advantage that individuals homeowners can achieve with batteries (actual backup), so utility scale comes out ahead on cost. The CPUC made their decision on cost, so unless the author has some actual data to back that up (they don't, and they even sympathize with that argument), it's all really just a feels piece. The Ward legislation was flawed in that it set constraints that could not be navigated through the cost modelling structures.
Other states that haven't hit the belly of the duck will deal with this eventually and should thank early adopters like CA/TX for bringing down prices for battery storage for when they inevitably run into these issues. As a solar owner without battery in Colorado, I can guarantee you I'm taking more from the utility than I put in, which simply will fail at a certain scale and create inequities. You can argue that this is all fine and the carbon reduction is more important (and I generally agree), but there has to be a line somewhere where we need to agree on least cost solutions when all of the options get us to near net zero in the same timeframe.

19 comments