Solar

California official: utilities would like to “strangle” solar

By David R. Baker

Unless you follow California energy regulation very, very closely, you’ve probably never heard of Mark Ferron.

For nearly three years, Ferron served on the California Public Utilities Commission, the panel that sets utility rates, oversees telecom companies and plays a key role in California’s fight against global warming. The CPUC faced fierce scrutiny in the wake of the deadly 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, with critics accusing the commissioners of being too cozy with the companies they regulate. But much of the time, a seat on the five-member panel isn’t exactly a high-profile job.

Ferron abruptly resigned his post last Thursday. And people in California’s solar industry have been talking about him ever since.

Ferron, a former executive with Deutsche Bank and Salomon Brothers, stepped down to focus on fighting prostate cancer, which his doctors diagnosed in 2012. In one of his final acts as commissioner, he penned a three-page goodbye note that gives a remarkably blunt assessment of the state of California energy and climate policy, as well as the CPUC.

The most eye-catching comments concern the simmering fight over net energy metering, the system under which owners of solar arrays get compensation for excess electricity they export to the grid. The debate has pitted utilities against solar companies, and it’s far from over.

“We are fortunate to have utilities in California that are orders of magnitude more enlightened than their brethren in the coal loving states, although I suspect that they would still dearly like to strangle rooftop solar if they could,” Ferron wrote.

He noted last year’s passage of AB327, a California law ordering the CPUC to tackle net metering and reform utility rates.

“But recognize that this is a poisoned chalice: the Commission will come under intense pressure to use this authority to protect the interests of the utilities over those of consumers and potential self-generators, all in the name of addressing exaggerated concerns about grid stability, cost and fairness. You – my fellow Commissioners — all must be bold and forthright in defending and strengthening our state’s commitment to clean and distributed energy generation.”

Ferron said he was convinced the CPUC was making strides on improving its focus on public safety. But too many of the commission’s older employees are nearing retirement, and too many of its talented young staffers are leaving for private-sector jobs, Ferron wrote. And California’s utility companies, he said, still need watching.

“Their strategy is often: ‘we will give the Commission only what they explicitly order us to give them.’ This is cat and mouse, not partnership, so we have to be one smart and aggressive cat.”

Since Thursday, solar entrepreneurs and advocates have been e-mailing each other links to Ferron’s farewell, with particular emphasis on the “strangle” comment. The head of California’s main solar trade group called the resignation note “a must-read for anyone in the solar industry.”