BY DAVID REAGOR
Los Alamos County Councilor

Facts:
* Solar is the only abundant energy source in Los Alamos County.
* The county cap is to not go past 6 MW total in home solar production.
* Individual homes are capped at enough solar power to cover their needs.
* For homeowners solar is a good investment.
* Many homeowners invested significant amounts of money by assuming higher retail payment rates.

Our local producers of home solar have been given a new payment schedule. It essentially pays wholesale for the solar power generated. This is after many people invested tens of thousands of dollars into systems. In addition, these producers are doing a public service. They are producing electricity for the county without requiring any capital investment by our utilities department. The homeowner furnishes the land and buys the equipment. There cannot be a better deal for the county. The producers are instead being treated like serfs or peasants, they get whatever the government orders without considering fairness. The proposal below should be placed into a county ordinance, where current and future residents would be protected from future administrative changes. Other residents would then be free to invest in a solar system with certainty and the local solar electric production can continue to flourish.

I propose the following solution to resolve the unfair treatment of the solar producers: Limit individual solar systems to whatever can safely be transmitted on the home’s power connection.

Public Notice: I am having a campaign townhall “Illuminating Los Alamos” on Sept. 25 (6 p.m. – 8 p.m.) at the SALA Evenr Center. We will start off with the utility issues and then discuss small businesses, and then downtown development for White Rock and Los Alamos.

• Fix the solar reimbursement at 11.6cents/kilowatt-hr, or the wholesale price, whichever is higher. This is the retail rate paid when this discussion started a little over a year ago.

• Remove the county total cap of 6 MW.
  
• Limit individual solar systems to whatever can safely be transmitted on the home’s power connection
  
  Public Notice: I am having a campaign townhall “Illuminating Los Alamos” on Sept. 25 (6 pm-8pm) at the SALA Event Center. We will start off with the utility issues and then discuss small businesses, and then downtown development for White Rock and Los Alamos.