A new report calling for an end to taxpayer funded subsidies for solar and other renewable energy reveals mostly wealthy residential solar users are making money selling back excess power, which adds $10 to the monthly bills other electric customers.
The scheme is spelled out in a new report from Citizens Against Government Waste in which the advocacy groups calls for an end to subsidies and even quotes energy industry leaders saying that it is time for renewables to stand on their own.
In “The Sun Should Set on Solar Socialism,” the group reports that the government has spent $13.7 billion on subsidies, or about $111 for every household in America. And it has billions more in a subsidy kitty for solar.
AP Photo/Bill Haber
But it notes that some energy companies and foreign governments are beginning to pull the plug on solar because the payoff is poor.
[The full report is available in pdf form below.]
It also hasn’t created the promised jobs. In his first presidential campaign, for example, President Obama promised his solar subsidy program would create 5 million jobs. In fact, it has created only 223,398 jobs, about 4 percent of his green energy agenda promise.
But it is helping solar makers fund their projects and, for some, sticking the bill to taxpayers when the projects fail, like the infamous bankruptcy of Solyndra.
It is also helping residential subsidy recipients. The report shows how those who get subsidies sell back power that ends up boosting the monthly bill of energy users.
CAGW cited a California Public Utilities Commission report that found customers installing systems that can sell back solar-generated power had an average household income $91,210. The commission determined that the “net metering” payback to those solar users will top $1 billion by 2020.
Another report in Massachusetts said that buying the electricity back costs the average residential electric customer about $10 a month.
Nonetheless, Obama is pushing renewables at a climate change conference in Paris and several presidential candidates are also endorsing solar and wind energy.
But after 10 years of federal subsidies, CAGW argues, it’s time to cut the subsidies. “It will not be clear that the power of the sun is viable in helping to power America’s homes and businesses until its federal purse strings are severed, setting free the solar industry and taxpayers,” concluded the 14-page report.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
