Dave Rosenfeld with Solar Rights Alliance

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[00:01:23] Hello and welcome to Kilowatt a podcast about electric vehicles renewable energy autonomous driving and much much more.

[00:01:29] My name is Bodhi and I am your host and on the last episode

[00:01:34] I think it was the last episode and I'm now I'm getting these out of order.

[00:01:38] We had Glenn Rubin on and we spoke about

[00:01:42] off-roading in his Cybertruck and in that episode he mentioned that I should

[00:01:47] look at interviewing someone from the Solar Rights Alliance in California and

[00:01:53] Gene put me in touch with Dave Rosenfeld and

[00:01:57] I'm going to be honest with you from the get-go. I really liked Dave. I feel like we have a lot in common.

[00:02:04] So in this episode Dave and I are going to talk about some of the challenges

[00:02:08] of installing solar panels on your house and generating your own power. The Solar Rights Alliance is a California

[00:02:16] organization, but this can be applied

[00:02:19] like I said across the country and probably in different parts of the world

[00:02:23] when it comes to wanting to generate your own power and even go off-grid.

[00:02:27] So there's a good conversation. One of the things that I really appreciated when I was speaking with Dave is this could

[00:02:34] easily be a political issue.

[00:02:36] Dave did not make this into a political issue. As a matter of fact,

[00:02:39] he told me after we were done recording the interview that there are people from all

[00:02:45] political ideologies that are part of this organization. I think it was over

[00:02:50] 160,000 people are in some way involved in this organization.

[00:02:54] So rather than me explain to you what the whole interview was, let's go ahead and welcome

[00:02:59] Dave to the show. Thanks for having me.

[00:03:02] All right, Dave, you are with an organization called Solar Rights.

[00:03:07] Before we get into Solar Rights and what they do, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and then how you

[00:03:13] got into fighting for solar energy or renewable energy?

[00:03:18] Yeah.

[00:03:20] So the Solar Rights Alliance is a California based organization. I grew up in New Jersey and

[00:03:26] that really doesn't really matter at all except I like to tell people I grew up in New Jersey and

[00:03:32] I've been basically a community organizer and a campaigner for

[00:03:38] my adult life.

[00:03:40] And I think mainly, I think early on,

[00:03:44] even in high school, I just found abuses of power to be outrageous.

[00:03:49] Like I just got angry all the time at just abuses of power.

[00:03:53] And I think I came to just realize that just any kind of consolidation of power

[00:03:57] really from either any kind of ideology just results in really, really bad things and it constricts people's freedom.

[00:04:04] And so the way I acted on that for most of my adult life

[00:04:09] was as a consumer advocate, as an anti-corruption campaigner.

[00:04:13] And the kind of approach that I felt made the most sense early on was like I could have gone to law school or

[00:04:20] kind of gone into academia. And I kind of felt just more like I wanted to be an organizer. I wanted to take

[00:04:25] help

[00:04:26] tap into the frustration that everyday people feel about

[00:04:30] their voices not being heard on this, that and the other. And getting people to speak together

[00:04:36] and to then move the needle that way, which I understand is kind of up.

[00:04:41] I think I understood early on that's kind of uphill because

[00:04:44] the powers that be, the ones that have the most money and the most ability to kind of use their money to corrupt

[00:04:50] decisions are always going to have the upper hand.

[00:04:52] But I think there's enough examples just littered throughout not just

[00:04:56] long history, but like around us where when people speak together,

[00:04:59] they can oftentimes strike enough fear into the hearts of cowardly politicians to do the right thing.

[00:05:04] And so that's been mostly what I've done. And at some point I found myself in California, you know now going back

[00:05:10] almost 20 years ago and I was living in LA

[00:05:13] and I worked on a campaign to convince Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature at the time

[00:05:19] to really go big with rooftop solar, to get the governor,

[00:05:22] to Governor Schwarzenegger to fulfill a campaign promise to have a million solar

[00:05:27] rooftops. Which you know, it was a really big thing at the time because there was no solar in California to speak of.

[00:05:33] I mean at that point you had to be either really wealthy or very, very technical to get solar.

[00:05:39] And so it was a really big idea and they followed through on it.

[00:05:43] And so this is now in 2005.

[00:05:45] And at the time, a lot of us felt like at some point there was going to be a million solar customers and that the utility was going to try to strike back and that we needed to organize those customers

[00:05:53] into like an AARP or an NRA. You pick your flavor of politics, but just whatever it is

[00:06:00] to defend the right to make your own energy at home

[00:06:04] or at your business or at your farm or you know at your church or school without the utility

[00:06:09] stopping you from doing that. And so you know, it took a couple of years for that to

[00:06:13] you know for there to be a million customers. But around 2018 is when we were like, okay it's time and that's when we launched the Solar Rights Alliance.

[00:06:22] Okay and then the Solar Rights Alliance is just for California, but the things that we're going to talk about today

[00:06:30] can definitely be, can apply to any state in the United States and I'm sure they can apply to other places around the world as well.

[00:06:38] So let's talk a little bit about what the Solar Rights Alliance does and just kind of the overall mission.

[00:06:46] Yeah, so the Solar Rights Alliance is the non-profit association of California solar users.

[00:06:53] We believe that everyone has the right to make energy from the sun without unreasonable interference from the utility or the government.

[00:07:01] And so we keep track of what the politicians and the regulators and the utilities are up to.

[00:07:06] And then we alert California's two million solar users as well as the general public when there is a threat to solar

[00:07:14] or where there is an opportunity to make rooftop solar and batteries more available to more people, more institutions and that kind of thing.

[00:07:22] And we have about 160,000, you know, we don't call anyone a member. We let people call themselves whatever they want to call themselves.

[00:07:30] This is a 21st century group and we believe really strongly that we're not going to claim you, you claim us, you sign up, you decide how you want to engage.

[00:07:39] But there's about 160,000 people who we speak to regularly via email or text message.

[00:07:45] And obviously people then spread the word from there. So there's many times where we, I feel like the messages that we're sending out are reaching millions of people at once.

[00:07:54] And that's what we do is we keep track, we alert and then we don't speak on behalf of anyone.

[00:08:01] What we do is we give people good information about what's going on and we make recommendations about the things that they can do,

[00:08:07] actionable recommendations about ways they can use their voice.

[00:08:11] And we try to keep things really, really, really simple.

[00:08:13] We, you know, I'm a dad, I think people have families and we understand that like most people don't really want to spend their waking hours doing politics.

[00:08:23] But also people understand that sometimes they have to speak.

[00:08:25] So we try to give people kind of a ladder of things, like from like the thing that's going to take you 10 seconds to do to the thing that might take more time.

[00:08:33] And we try to be clear with people of like, this is the minimum thing that you can do to make your voice heard.

[00:08:38] That'll make a difference.

[00:08:39] But if you want to, you know, have even a bigger impact, here are some other things that you can do.

[00:08:43] And we try to be very intentional about explaining that to people so that they can make good choices about ways that they can use their voice with the limited time that they have.

[00:08:52] Okay, let's talk a little bit about how you are like, what are the utilities doing in California?

[00:09:00] And there's lots of different utilities in California.

[00:09:02] So it's that's one thing California is definitely not short on is the amount of utility companies that are there.

[00:09:10] How are you interacting with these utility companies?

[00:09:12] Are the are you met with roadblocks?

[00:09:15] Are you met with open arms?

[00:09:17] Like, how is that interaction when you're trying to?

[00:09:21] I would imagine you're trying to partner and get in and make your concerns known to these folks.

[00:09:26] How is that met?

[00:09:28] Roadblocks is the good way to describe it.

[00:09:30] So California, there are three main utilities that serve the vast majority of the population, and that's PG&E, Southern California, Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric.

[00:09:39] Those are the three private utilities.

[00:09:41] They're often called investor owned utilities or IOUs.

[00:09:44] There are then also about 40 publicly run utilities.

[00:09:48] We call them munis, municipal utilities.

[00:09:50] The two largest ones are SMUD that serves the Sacramento area and then LADWP that serves LA and the surrounding area.

[00:09:58] And then there's like a lot of others that are much, much smaller.

[00:10:01] With few exceptions, you know, and a lot of people go, well, wouldn't a publicly run utility be better than a privately run run?

[00:10:06] And yes, in some cases because they have a little bit more accountability.

[00:10:10] But what we have found is that a monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly and a public monopoly and a private monopoly tend to think the same, which is that they

[00:10:17] want to be the monopoly.

[00:10:18] And rooftop solar is like the most anti-monopoly kind of thing that you can think of.

[00:10:24] It's individual households and churches and schools of businesses and institutions in the community that go, we are going to take this incredible technology, solar

[00:10:33] panels and put it on top of our roofs, sometimes in our backyard or whatever on our farm and make our own electricity or at least make some of our own

[00:10:40] electricity.

[00:10:41] And in fact, we even make extra.

[00:10:43] So we're going to sell it back to you, the utility, and you're going to buy it from us.

[00:10:46] And, you know, and the utilities just hate that.

[00:10:49] They just dispositionally just have not been able to find it in their DNA to realize just how awesome this is, how this makes their life easier, how this makes the grid

[00:11:02] cheaper, how it allows the, you know, the acceleration of clean energy to happen.

[00:11:08] For the most part, what we've seen is them putting up roadblock after roadblock after roadblock and customers having to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.

[00:11:16] For both the right to self-generate and share.

[00:11:19] And then also to just be treated fairly and not get penalized.

[00:11:22] I mean, that's, that's the big picture is I, you have to find me a utility that like truly is like running in the right direction.

[00:11:29] I think I could be wrong about this, but I think there's only one utility in the entire country that I've seen that gets it.

[00:11:38] And that's, that's the utility that serves most of Vermont.

[00:11:40] And then, you know, for the most part, I've seen that just utilities act like monopolies, regardless of whether they're private or public.

[00:11:47] I was just going to say that, and I thought it was Vermont, but I wasn't sure, but they have this deal with they'll pay for most of your, your whole home battery.

[00:11:55] And then you get a little, a little check at the end of the, so they, they subsidize it upfront.

[00:12:00] You get a little check at the, the end of the year based on how much they use then like it's a Vermont or that I can't remember what that utility is called, but that that's a good deal.

[00:12:09] That's, that's the right direction.

[00:12:11] Right?

[00:12:12] I think this is kind of weird because when I was in, when I was in my twenties, I met somebody who's an energy broker and basically they're the utility companies are already doing this.

[00:12:24] They're already going, Hey, can I buy some power over here?

[00:12:26] Can I buy some power over there?

[00:12:27] It's much simpler to buy power off of somebody's rooftop than it is to negotiate with all these other companies to get power from whether they're getting power from our nuclear plant here in Arizona or

[00:12:39] whatever.

[00:12:40] It's a lot less complicated to work with the, the homeowner than it is to work with another utility.

[00:12:49] You would think that would be a no brainer for them.

[00:12:51] They've already got the systems in place.

[00:12:53] Yeah.

[00:12:53] Yeah.

[00:12:54] And I don't want to pretend that it's easy to run a utility.

[00:12:56] I mean like, you know, electricity, reliable electricity, we should, you know, count our blessings that we have a system that allows us to do that.

[00:13:03] And I think we try to, you know, it's not like we're like, Oh, the utility should just go home and we're all going to do rooftop solar.

[00:13:10] I mean, maybe that's possible one day, but we recognize that like you need large scale energy and you need also, but you also want local energy and both serve a really good purpose.

[00:13:20] And the thing that's great about rooftop solar and ground mount solar, when I say rooftop, I'm also talking about ground mount for all of, for your listeners that are rural or farmers or what have you.

[00:13:29] We're talking about the same thing.

[00:13:31] A customer owned, you know, solar array and battery system or battery system is like people are willing to invest their own money.

[00:13:41] I mean, it is really, it's trillions and trillions of private dollars that people are willing to invest.

[00:13:47] And, you know, what kind of, this is an amazing system.

[00:13:49] Previously, the grid was just something that like got, you know, kind of subsidized or socialized, you know, across all rate payers.

[00:13:57] But here you now have people who are willing to put trillions of their, you know, collectively trillions of private consumer dollars into putting power plants on their roof.

[00:14:05] To, and just that is such an end.

[00:14:08] Like you said, the system is already set up to tie that energy to the grid and even to share it and allow it to kind of feed into the grid in a way that becomes useful.

[00:14:18] And so if I'm just thinking what's the most efficient and resilient system that I can build that also would reduce the cost, I'd want to leverage those consumer dollars as much as I possibly can.

[00:14:30] And incentivize as many people as possible to throw their dollars into the, into the, you know, doing that kind of thing, because then that makes the system better.

[00:14:38] It means that I don't have to invest in as many long distance power lines.

[00:14:40] I don't have to build as many solar farms and wind farms and geothermal, although we're going to have to build that stuff anyway.

[00:14:46] But not as much.

[00:14:47] It means that then if a part of the grid goes down, a part of the grid stays up.

[00:14:52] And, you know, if there's a terrorist attack, we have more resilience.

[00:14:55] If there is an earthquake or some kind of natural disaster, it just creates more resilience.

[00:15:01] It empowers consumers.

[00:15:02] People are able to save money.

[00:15:03] It makes the grid cheaper.

[00:15:05] So, you know, it's logical, but the problem is, is that if you're a monopoly, your DNA is we need to own everything.

[00:15:14] And the instant that a customer, even one customer starts to break away that monopoly, it means that your profits instead of being X, it's going to be X minus something.

[00:15:24] You're still profitable.

[00:15:26] You're still huge.

[00:15:27] You're still sending a lot of money to your shareholders, but it's not 100% dominance.

[00:15:31] And these guys are built for 100% dominance.

[00:15:34] And that's the thing to understand is a monopoly has to control the whole thing.

[00:15:38] They cannot allow there to be any, any leakage and rooftop solar represents the thing that they just dispositionally have to fight every step of the way.

[00:15:48] So in your mind, what would, what would be the best solution?

[00:15:51] Not like the optimal, how do I say this?

[00:15:55] What's one thing the utilities and the government could do to move toward that goal of being more renewable friendly, like self-powered renewable friendly?

[00:16:12] What's one thing the government could do?

[00:16:14] Cause I want to be very, listen, I have, I have my own personal thoughts about things.

[00:16:20] So I want to be very fair when I say this, cause I've been screwed over by my utility company.

[00:16:27] They were overcharging me.

[00:16:28] There was a class action lawsuit and I got a $40 check.

[00:16:31] They were overcharging me for three years and I got a $40 check out of my class action lawsuit.

[00:16:37] So yeah, I'm not super pleased about that, but so I, so I I'm coming at this from a bias.

[00:16:43] I'm trying to be very fair.

[00:16:45] What's one thing that, that could shift that would balance the scales, I guess, would be the better way to put this?

[00:16:55] Well, you asked for one thing, but I'm going to say two.

[00:16:57] Um, I mean, the first thing is just do not penalize people in any way, shape or form.

[00:17:05] Like just, it just got to be a rule of thumb that you have a right.

[00:17:08] You recognize that you have a right to make your own energy, you know, on your property.

[00:17:15] And to thus not have to buy the utilities energy.

[00:17:20] If you don't have to, I think that's kind of like rule number one is just, we call this your solar right is the right to self generate that what goes on behind the meter is your business and you have a right not to buy the utilities power.

[00:17:34] Um, and so I think that's the first thing is just guaranteeing that right.

[00:17:39] And putting that into law.

[00:17:40] So that means no special discriminatory solar taxes, no penalties or, or discriminatory fees.

[00:17:49] Um, and just a recognition of, of, uh, or any kind of policy that would essentially try to claw back essentially, or force you to have to buy electricity from the utility, even if you're not buying it from them, if you know what I mean, put into examples.

[00:18:03] That's the most important thing.

[00:18:04] Like, like that's, that's the thing.

[00:18:06] That's the holy grail that utilities want all over the country is the basically essentially forcing you to have to buy the electricity from the utility, whether you actually need it or not.

[00:18:17] And then I think if you wanted to go a step further, you asked for one, so I'm going to go, that's the one, that's the one thing we had that on the books, you know, and enshrine people's solar rights.

[00:18:25] I think that would solve almost 80% of the problem, uh, that we face almost anywhere.

[00:18:30] It looks like you're about to say something.

[00:18:32] No, go ahead.

[00:18:33] I'm, I'm agreeing with you.

[00:18:35] Then I think the second thing is, um, so that first thing is very simple, right?

[00:18:41] Like, I mean, I could write, you don't even need a law degree to essentially write that into law.

[00:18:44] Um, that, that's easy.

[00:18:46] Um, the second thing is a little more wonky, but I actually think I would put this ahead of like incentives and I know incentives will be controversial.

[00:18:54] People on the right don't like incentives.

[00:18:55] People on the left like it.

[00:18:57] You know, we kind of are more practical about like sometimes yes, sometimes no.

[00:19:01] But I actually think that's further down the list.

[00:19:04] The second thing is that in any given state and region where we're doing grid planning, where we're thinking about the future and we're thinking about the investments that we need to be making in the electrical grid to make sure that it is reliable and, and also safe.

[00:19:18] Um, that we actually take into account what is the maximum amount of electricity that we can, um, get from our rooftops.

[00:19:28] And that we can get from the private investment of consumers.

[00:19:31] How can we entice consumers to maximize the amount of dollars that they're willing to put down to put solar panels on their roof and take that into account and plan for it?

[00:19:42] Um, first and then go now what large scale infrastructure do we still need to build in order to fill in the gaps and make sure that we have enough electricity to serve the needs of the public?

[00:19:53] That see change in grid planning, starting from the standpoint of going, how do we get all these consumers to invest their own money first and a power plant on the roof before we then think about the next bajillion dollar solar farm or just astronomically expensive, you know, transmission and distribution system to build.

[00:20:10] That would be awesome.

[00:20:12] I mean, then we would really be off to the races and we could be staring down a future where we make this transition to clean energy a lot less expensive than right now it's looking to be.

[00:20:22] And, um, that would be the second thing.

[00:20:24] And what that would do is put consumers at the center of the conversation for once it would realize that like consumers actually have an active role to play here in making the grid of the future cheaper and reliable and cleaner.

[00:20:36] And, um, that would be the second thing I would do.

[00:20:39] But if we can't get grid planners to be that, um, you know, smart, then at the very least just leave us to heck alone and just make sure that you don't trample on our solar rights.

[00:20:49] And that's why I start with the first thing.

[00:20:51] Yeah, it's weird because, uh, let's just say we use the incentive, uh, example.

[00:20:59] Uh, I don't know what the, the price per kilowatt, if it ends up being more or less, if you install solar on your house, but it's relatively cheap for a utility to be like, Hey, we're going to go ahead and throw $20,000 towards your $30,000 solar panel system.

[00:21:18] And, um, we want X amount back.

[00:21:22] That's relatively cheap for them to do when you look at, you know, building these big transfer stations and the peaker plants and things like that.

[00:21:29] Those are in the millions of dollars.

[00:21:31] This is in the tens of thousands of dollars.

[00:21:33] So I, I, I, I'm hesitant to say too much because I don't know if it's a lot less efficient than a natural gas speaker plant.

[00:21:42] Cause you know, The bigger you go and your generators, the more efficient it gets.

[00:21:46] So I don't want to go too far down that road, but it's kind of a no brainer in terms of PR for your monopoly.

[00:21:56] If we're going to use that term, uh, you get a lot of good PR out of that.

[00:22:00] You get to use some of that.

[00:22:01] If you incentivize it, if you paid for some of it, you can say, Hey, we're going to get a little bit of this back, uh, to help stabilize the grid during peak, uh, power times.

[00:22:12] I, it's just beyond me.

[00:22:14] Why there's such a hesitation.

[00:22:16] Well, I can tell you, I can tell you, I mean, because the thing that the utilities make their money on isn't so much the electricity from the power plants.

[00:22:25] Um, the utilities make their money on the long distance power lines, the transmission and distribution system.

[00:22:30] That's the way it works.

[00:22:31] And so for every dollar in California, and this is typical around the country, but I'll give you the California example.

[00:22:37] Utilities for every dollar that they are allowed to spend building transmission and distribution lines and, you know, infrastructure.

[00:22:48] Basically long distance power lines.

[00:22:49] I mean, it gets complicated quick, but just, I'm going to use that phrase every dollar they spend building that first off, they charge rate payers all that.

[00:22:57] Right?

[00:22:57] So like they get approved for a $300 billion program that all $300 billion of that gets amortized over a period of time and then charged to rate payers.

[00:23:06] But then in addition, they get to tack on an eight to 12% guaranteed profit on top of that dollar.

[00:23:12] Every single dollar, eight to 12% profit.

[00:23:15] So of course you want to maximize profits.

[00:23:17] You have to maximize your spending on the long distance power.

[00:23:21] And, um, and this is why electricity prices in California are through the roof is because regulators have just let the utility spend like drunken sailors over the last 25 years on like gold plated, like, you know, just the most expensive possible.

[00:23:35] You know, costs per mile that you can get on this stuff.

[00:23:39] Um, so rooftop solar, the more that people make their own energy, the less you need to build long distance power lines and thus just inherently it's going to reduce the utilities profit.

[00:23:49] And that's why they can't abide by rooftop solar.

[00:23:53] These are private companies that must maximize their investment.

[00:23:55] They must maximize return for their shareholders and your solar, even if it still makes them, you know, even if they maintain, they stay incredibly profitable.

[00:24:04] They are not as profitable as they would be if your solar didn't exist.

[00:24:08] And when you have to maximize, maximize, maximize, it means minimize rooftop solar, get it off the table.

[00:24:15] That makes a lot more sense.

[00:24:17] That that's a, that was really well said.

[00:24:20] Um, yeah, there's a lot going off in my head right now.

[00:24:24] Again, I have my own personal thoughts, but I try to keep those out of this show.

[00:24:27] So I'm going to smooth past that and let's move on to, uh, the politicians, the legislators in California.

[00:24:34] Um, working with those folks.

[00:24:36] How has that been?

[00:24:38] Herod.

[00:24:39] Um, there are a couple of brave legislators, like some really good, there's a couple, a handful, um, like in the, in the twenties, you know, of, of legislators that are willing to stand up and, um, and are really standing up for their customers.

[00:24:58] But the vast majority of the legislature is, um, just they side with the utilities and all we can explain how that's possible in California.

[00:25:10] In a moment, the governor is completely captured by the utilities.

[00:25:15] And because the governor appoints the public utilities commission, the regulators, the regulators are completely captured by the utilities.

[00:25:22] And there's no check on this.

[00:25:23] I mean, mostly it's politics, right?

[00:25:26] The governor got in just from 2017 alone.

[00:25:29] And this governor has had a long career.

[00:25:30] So, you know, we didn't even look further back than 2017, but from 2017 to the president, this governor took $5.7 million from the utilities and campaign contributions.

[00:25:40] And, um, but also like the rules are just ridiculous.

[00:25:45] Like the current, that one of the most powerful PG&E lobbyists was a CPUC commissioner just like three years ago, Carla Peterman.

[00:25:53] And this is like super common.

[00:25:54] I mean, this revolving door is like incredible.

[00:25:56] Do you know that the, the founder of the environmental group NRDC, um, NRDC is a big utility shale by the way, we could talk about how big green has gotten corrupted by the utilities somewhere down the road.

[00:26:07] But, um, the founder of, one of the founders of NRDC became a CPUC commissioner.

[00:26:11] This is back in the like seventies and eighties.

[00:26:14] Um, and then went to be become the CEO of Edison international, which is the parent company of Southern California Edison.

[00:26:19] So this revolving door goes back really, really far.

[00:26:22] So it's just a cesspool, a total swum.

[00:26:26] Um, and, um, so it's just, it's not good right now.

[00:26:30] And, um, you know, there's, there's no really good leadership there.

[00:26:34] We don't have a governor Schwarzenegger right now.

[00:26:37] Um, what we have as a governor who's captured by the utilities, a legislature that with a few exceptions is captured by the utilities regulators captured by the utilities.

[00:26:45] And we are in a very, very uphill fight right now to stay alive.

[00:26:48] It's so weird because, you know, with all the fires in Northern California and the utilities just, you know, trying to save money and not doing the right thing.

[00:26:57] You would think that with that bad press, the politicians would be as far away from that as possible.

[00:27:05] But then you also have all of the, I assume you're still having rolling brownouts and things like that in California.

[00:27:11] Is that still going on?

[00:27:13] It's still going on.

[00:27:13] You know, it's not as bad as it could be thanks to rooftop solar.

[00:27:17] I mean, rooftop solar has kind of reduced the load on the grid during peak times.

[00:27:22] And so, you know, every, but we've had a few like last summer and the summer before we had like some really hairy weeks, you know, where like basically the government was saying, don't charge your electric car, please.

[00:27:34] Right.

[00:27:34] You know, this is crazy.

[00:27:35] Like they're going, we're actually going to phase out gas cars by 2035, but we can't, you know, but please don't charge your electric car.

[00:27:42] And by the way, we're going to kill rooftop solar, those programs to make it, you know, harder.

[00:27:47] So this government, you know, talks out of both sides of its mouth in California.

[00:27:52] On the one hand, you know, you had the governor last week going to the Vatican to kind of do this whole climate change song and dance.

[00:27:58] But California is not on track with its climate change goals.

[00:28:01] I mean, Governor Newsom's own government says that rooftop solar has to triple, you know, among all the other large renewable energy sources in order for the state to completely get off fossil fuels.

[00:28:12] And yet his also, his government basically gutted the policies that has allowed rooftop solar to grow.

[00:28:18] And now rooftop solar is completely collapsing in California.

[00:28:21] And so, you know, it's just the, you know, it's on the one hand is like climate change, electric cars, all this stuff, but we're going to kill rooftop solar and only just, you know, advantage the utility solar, which is super expensive and nobody wants to buy it.

[00:28:37] And so, yeah, it's, I want to talk a little bit about how is it possible that in a democratic, supposedly pro-green state like California, the state's politicians are essentially sabotaging their own climate change goals.

[00:28:52] And I think there's a story to tell there, but one step at a time, you know, yeah, California is totally off track and they're off track because the politicians talk a big game.

[00:29:01] But when it comes down to the specifics, they're failing.

[00:29:08] So why don't we just dig into that right now?

[00:29:11] Like, there's no reason to wait.

[00:29:13] I want to.

[00:29:14] Let's go.

[00:29:15] Let's go.

[00:29:15] It's hell to pay.

[00:29:16] So here's the thing in red states and blue states, the utilities run everything for the most part, as far as I can tell.

[00:29:22] And you ought to get it.

[00:29:24] There's a group called Solar United Neighbors that does our work in the other 49 states.

[00:29:29] And they've got a lot of stories to tell about, you know, what goes on in other blue states and in other red states.

[00:29:35] But so they have a playbook and it sort of depends on the politics of the state.

[00:29:39] But in California, you have this democratic, very deep blue state.

[00:29:45] Their weapon is their labor union.

[00:29:48] So the PG&E's labor union is contract, the collective, they have a contract, you know, the union has a contract with the company.

[00:29:55] It's called a collective bargaining agreement.

[00:29:58] And we have that, you know, it's public so you can see it.

[00:30:01] And there is a very, very clear clause in there.

[00:30:06] The title is called competitive challenges.

[00:30:08] And it basically says that the union will defend PG&E's business model against any competitive challenge.

[00:30:15] And it has a whole section that goes customers now have more choices, but that's not good.

[00:30:22] I mean, I'm using my words, not you got to read the language yourself.

[00:30:25] And we need to defend the company against these competitive challenges.

[00:30:29] And the union takes that very, very seriously.

[00:30:31] And unfortunately for us, PG&E's union is the most powerful labor union in California in a democratic state that is very much controlled by organized labor.

[00:30:43] And so I'm not trashing labor unions.

[00:30:45] I'm not trashing organized labor.

[00:30:46] I'm trashing PG&E's labor union, which is basically an instrument of evil to kill rooftop solar and their lobbyist Scott Wetch is one of the most powerful lobbyists in the legislature.

[00:31:00] And he's very effective at what he does.

[00:31:03] He's kind of like Darth Vader to the emperor.

[00:31:06] And they have a lot of money and they legislators and politicians are really, really scared of them.

[00:31:14] And that's why in a supposedly green state, environmental, blah, blah, blah, supposedly trying to get off fossil fuels.

[00:31:23] Why this government is so hostile to rooftop solar is PG&E's labor union.

[00:31:28] But we should just remember it's still the utilities that are doing it.

[00:31:32] It's just they have lots of puppets and in a blue state, the puppet that they use is their union.

[00:31:38] Okay.

[00:31:39] Maybe we use the word hammer.

[00:31:41] I'm a proud union member by the way.

[00:31:42] But I do recognize that we have sometimes in the history, we've maybe gone a little overboard.

[00:31:52] So I do recognize that that sometimes happens.

[00:31:55] It's like anything, you know?

[00:31:56] Yeah.

[00:31:56] And just to, you know, because I don't want to, I recognize that you're going to have some union members in your listenership.

[00:32:03] Remember I said at the very beginning that the thing that really early on in my career, I think I recognized was the power of the union.

[00:32:12] I was just consolidation of power.

[00:32:14] Generally power corrupts, you know, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[00:32:20] And this can happen when the good guys get too much power and when the bad guys get too much power, insert your version of who the good and bad guys are.

[00:32:27] And so it's just an example of what happens when just even people who you might think are like generally your team, when they get too much power, they can oftentimes get corrupted by really bad people and start doing really bad things.

[00:32:38] And that's what's happening here.

[00:32:40] Yes.

[00:32:40] And I agree with that a hundred percent.

[00:32:42] One of the things when I talk about unions on this show, which in the last year and a half or so has been a lot more than normal.

[00:32:49] I always tell them that I'm a proud union member.

[00:32:51] I'm very supportive of unions, but unions shouldn't have all the power.

[00:32:54] Businesses shouldn't have all the power.

[00:32:56] There should be a consolidation and a give and a take.

[00:32:58] And you're not always going to like the answer, but if again, just like you said, if one of those two sides has all the power, it's not good for the other side.

[00:33:09] So I'm on board with that.

[00:33:11] Yeah.

[00:33:11] Too many examples here and around the world where, you know, checks and balances is a pretty darn good idea turns out.

[00:33:18] Yeah.

[00:33:18] No, no.

[00:33:19] It's it seems to be something that people don't want anymore as long as their side's winning.

[00:33:29] All right.

[00:33:30] Let's, let's go on to have you had a talk?

[00:33:34] What was that gentleman's name?

[00:33:36] That was the lobbyist for the union.

[00:33:38] Scott Wetch.

[00:33:39] Wetch, okay.

[00:33:40] Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:41] And he's a lobbyist for the basically the electrical workers that, you know, the line workers and, and he's, he's very, very effective, but he is ruthless.

[00:33:55] Just absolutely ruthless and very powerful and wields, you know, it's kind of old school, you know, when you think of like that kind of old school power broker, you know, almost, you know, borderline thuggery kind of thing.

[00:34:06] Like that's what you're getting there.

[00:34:09] All right.

[00:34:10] All right.

[00:34:11] Oh, let's, let's kind of talk about, I don't know where to go from here.

[00:34:17] Uh, last week when the Biden administration did these tariffs on solar panels and EVs and stuff like that, did that affect what you folks are trying to do at all?

[00:34:31] It's interesting.

[00:34:32] I've been actually wanting to ask some of the people I know in the industry what they think.

[00:34:38] You know, cause, cause it might, I mean, I can imagine if, you know, like the panels on my roof are Chinese panels.

[00:34:45] Um, and I asked most people's yeah.

[00:34:48] Yeah.

[00:34:49] Yeah.

[00:34:49] Minor, minor Jinko panels.

[00:34:51] And, you know, I asked my installer, I was like, you know, what's tell me about that?

[00:34:57] Like, why are you installing Chinese panels, not a domestic manufacturer?

[00:35:01] And the installer was like, well, you know, it's, it's all about price.

[00:35:04] And, and I was like, well, what about like reliability and the warranty and, you know, just, is there a risk there?

[00:35:09] And he's like, you know, maybe, but you know, these, these manufacturers have been around a long time and we've been using this product for a long time.

[00:35:16] And so we feel very comfortable with it.

[00:35:18] And of course, you know, I'm not technical enough to kind of question that.

[00:35:21] So, you know, here we are and my system works just fine.

[00:35:23] So I have to assume, you know, if China, you know, China has, the government has made, you know, has decades of investing in it's, you know, the industry.

[00:35:32] And it's probably very much propped up by the government.

[00:35:35] And I'm not saying whether that's good or bad or whatever.

[00:35:37] Some people will think it's good and some people think that's, you know, bad.

[00:35:40] But the bottom line is this Chinese companies just have a much more advantages than, you know, domestic or just, you know, companies around.

[00:35:48] So I have to assume that if somehow the Chinese panels are going to get more expensive, then the price is going to get more expensive.

[00:35:54] So that's on the one hand, probably that's a short term, you know, thing.

[00:35:59] And then on the other hand, I mean, everything that I've been hearing is that the arc of the technology, the arc of the pricing is, is not, it looks nothing but good from, from the, from the consumer's standpoint.

[00:36:11] I mean, it may be kind of like five years or six years down the road.

[00:36:15] But you know, pretty much everyone in the industry that I talked to, you know, is saying that prices have been going down obviously, right?

[00:36:22] It used to be $40 a watt 20 years ago to install solar.

[00:36:25] Now it's about $4 a watt.

[00:36:27] And you're not going to see that same kind of decline, but that we should, you know, start to see a pretty big price break, you know, but it's just going to take a little bit of time for the manufacturing to kind of get root for

[00:36:41] the technology to just continue to improve.

[00:36:43] And this is the same thing for batteries, by the way.

[00:36:45] I mean, batteries right now are pretty expensive for consumers.

[00:36:48] That's also because like automotive is kind of at the front of the line, there's supply chain issues as the kind of automotive thing becomes a little bit more mature than I think the consumer batteries, what I've heard is going to get a lot cheaper too.

[00:36:59] But it's not going to be like cheaper in a year or two.

[00:37:01] It'll be cheaper in like five, six, seven years.

[00:37:03] So I suspect that this kind of tariff thing is kind of like a short term headwind and longer term, the arc of the price of solar and batteries is only going to get better and better.

[00:37:17] Yeah, I would agree with that.

[00:37:18] I again don't want to be political.

[00:37:22] I tend to think this is all election year stuff and it will disappear as soon as China and the United States decide that they want it to disappear.

[00:37:33] I don't think this is going to last because it includes medical supplies and a bunch of other stuff as well.

[00:37:39] But one of the things you mentioned, whole home batteries.

[00:37:43] One of the things that came out this last week that I was very excited about is Anker, who makes a lot of really cool, like cheap stuff for your cell phone.

[00:37:52] Cheap, I should say inexpensive because it's good quality, but they're making a whole home battery now as well.

[00:37:59] I actually tried to get a quote, but their website would not work.

[00:38:04] I tried to do it.

[00:38:05] So, but there are more and more companies entering this space, which is only good for consumers, especially when companies like Anker are doing it.

[00:38:14] Because like I said, they make really good products and they're pretty affordable.

[00:38:19] I totally agree.

[00:38:20] I mean, I think the demand for a battery is just only going to increase.

[00:38:25] There's this concern about blackouts and brownouts as utilities start to do time abuse pricing really aggressively.

[00:38:32] And so that evening electricity starts getting so expensive that it's starting to wipe out your savings during the day from solar.

[00:38:40] The demand is there.

[00:38:40] Obviously, electric cars are going to just drive the research.

[00:38:44] I mean, car companies are just trying to figure out how do I make this battery cheaper while still being powerful?

[00:38:50] I don't know at some point is there going to be some massive breakthrough so that we don't need lithium ion.

[00:38:56] We can do something else.

[00:38:57] It's hard to say, like, is there something right around the corner?

[00:39:01] Is it going to take longer?

[00:39:02] But the amount of research and development and just the trillions of dollars worldwide that are going into figuring out how to build a better and cheaper battery that can work at scale.

[00:39:13] You just got to think that the startups like what you're saying, you just got to think that this is only going to be good.

[00:39:21] Which is another reason why I'm giving you kind of a sour story on California right now.

[00:39:26] If I don't sound pissed and let me tell me and I'll sound more pissed.

[00:39:32] But the arc of the whole thing is really good.

[00:39:35] I mean, the utilities product just inherently is getting more expensive.

[00:39:38] And what we're talking about here is that consumer solar and batteries is only going to get cheaper.

[00:39:45] Which is why I think the most important thing is we have to protect people's right to self generate the right to make and store energy on your property without the utility taxing you or penalizing you or seizing control of those electrons and that kind of thing.

[00:40:00] You know, at some point, you know the fights that we're having over like incentives and that kind of thing will become move in the same way that like nobody talks about like do we need to incentivize cell phones?

[00:40:10] It's just the product is cheap enough that consumers get it.

[00:40:13] And I think many people in the industry who feel that it's only a matter of time.

[00:40:20] And so we have to do is fight for people's right to self generate the most part and then we can get people in the government to realize that the policies ought to line up to incentivize people to invest their own money.

[00:40:33] In this whole thing, then that would be great. That would be a bonus.

[00:40:36] For sure, for sure. So if people want to learn more about what you folks are doing, they can go to solar rights dot org.

[00:40:44] And I have to say you have a very nice website because I looked because I have solar panels and I was looking through your consumer guide and I was like, oh, it's that time of year. I need to clean my panels.

[00:40:57] You know, there's some other things on there. What my installer went out of business. How do I find somebody to repair my system?

[00:41:03] Like these are these are really good topics to advice for monitoring the system. These are really good topics for anybody to go to and take a look at.

[00:41:14] Thank you. Yeah, that's good feedback. I mean, that's certainly our intention is to go like what's what is your street level?

[00:41:21] You know, kind of top of mind concerns for somebody with rooftop solar. And so we try to design our website to just really address that need as well as, you know, kind of like what's the top line threat and how can you kind of plug in as a busy person without having to like give your life up to politics.

[00:41:38] So that's great feedback. Thank you. And we encourage people to always to give us feedback on the information on our website so that we can make it as usable and actionable as possible.

[00:41:46] Fantastic. Is there anything else you would like to promote before we call this interview good?

[00:41:52] Well, what I would say is if you live in California, please and you have solar or you're thinking about it, sign up at solar rights dot org. It's free to sign up. We will ask you to donate once or twice or three times a year, but you can always ignore that if you want and just get the information.

[00:42:08] You know, so it's but it's important. Your voice is really important. We have been able to stop these as you've heard a terrible story from California and the situation is tough.

[00:42:19] I know this, but like so many things in life, it could be so much worse. And the reason that we prevented it from being worse, the reason why your basic right to make solar energy is intact in California is because of the voice of hundreds of thousands of solar users who have fought like heck to

[00:42:35] stop the utilities from the things that they really, really want. And we're going to have to keep doing that. And so your voice is really, really important.

[00:42:41] If you live outside of California, if you live in the United States, but you're outside of California, I want to make a plug for a dynamite organization that they're kind of like our brother and sister organization.

[00:42:52] They're called Solar United Neighbors. And if you just Google them, their site will pop up and you should go sign up with them. So California solar rights alliance, the other 49 states, Solar United Neighbors.

[00:43:04] There's a place for you regardless of where you live in the U S where you can make sure that your voice is organized together with the voices of other solar users so that you can defend your right to make energy from the sun.

[00:43:16] Yeah, and I'm looking at their, they have like a bunch of sub organizations that they point links to and there's Tucson, Twin Cities, Virginia, Boulder.

[00:43:27] The page just goes on and on and on. So you can find a location or somebody to a co-op to tie in with anywhere you live it looks like.

[00:43:37] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were trying to, we worked together with them to try to make sure that we have a nationwide presence and a nationwide movement so that wherever you are in the country, you can band your voice together with other solar users to defend your right.

[00:43:51] And I'll make sure to put that link in the show notes as well. Dave, is there, do you want to promote like a social media? Do you have a Twitter or an X account that you'd like people to follow?

[00:44:04] Yeah, yeah, we're on all the things. We're on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you just search for Solar Rights Alliance, there's nobody like us. So you will find it very, very easy to find our handle.

[00:44:14] You know, signing up is the best. We find that email is just still king and so that's the primary way with which we communicate. And I swear you, we do not send too much email.

[00:44:25] I get way too much email as you know, signed up on my list. So I try to look through the lens of, you know, in my private life and go, I don't want that. So I don't want to voice that on somebody else.

[00:44:38] And so yeah, you should get involved and it's really easy to get involved. And I'd say the first step is go to our site, sign up, follow us on the social media handles.

[00:44:49] And then if you have a question, we have a zero inbox kind of protocol. So if you send us an email, we actually do respond to it.

[00:44:57] Thanks.

[00:44:58] Thanks.

[00:45:00] You know, and we even respond to phone calls as they come in. So, you know, we take very seriously. We want you to have your questions answered. We want to be able to engage with you.

[00:45:11] You know, we don't want to become one of those big bloated nonprofits that like just is like another, you know, giant credit card company like we take very seriously that, you know, every single person really, really matters here.

[00:45:22] Yeah, I believe that 100%. All right. Well, Dave, thank you so much for agreeing to come on and kind of filling everybody in as to what Solar Rights Alliance is doing. I really appreciate it.

[00:45:33] All right. Thank you. Thank you for everything that you're doing and thanks to your listeners for tuning in.

[00:45:54] We're so confident we offer a lifetime warranty.

[00:45:57] So, Elevator, you're the best.

[00:46:24] All right. I want to thank Dave for agreeing to come on the show and chat with us. I did let him know that he's welcome on the show anytime he wants. He's good chat and full of good information. So, I hope you all enjoyed it.

[00:46:38] If you want to know more about Solar Rights Alliance, you can check out our website at www.SolarWright.com.

[00:46:47] And if you're not in California, but would like to learn more about Solar United Neighbors, you can go to www.SolarUnitedNeighbors.org.

[00:46:55] And I'll put links to that in the show notes as well.

[00:46:57] Thank you, Dave again for coming on the show.

[00:46:59] Thank you, Gene, for setting this all up.

[00:47:01] Thank you all for joining us.

[00:47:03] And I'll see you next time.

[00:47:17] Thank you all for listening.

[00:47:19] Hope you all have a great day and I will talk to you soon.

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