I was feeling cranky
Chris Wiegard
260 Posts

This just published in the Richmond VA newspaper.

link-

Letter: Cutting solar credits is clearly shortsighted

Dear Editor-
I am thankful for your piece “What’s behind Dominion’s push to cut credit for solar panels?”
As I digested this well-researched article, I was troubled by the shortsightedness of this effort.
Lost in the debate on pricing fairness for rooftop solar is the bigger picture of our entire nation backing away from serious efforts to reduce carbon emissions. If we target rooftop solar, don’t we undercut the argument that goes “solar should go on top of buildings, instead of on top of farmland”?

The Trump administration is making it as hard as possible to build out solar and wind power, and is even reducing support for next generation nuclear, in favor of burning more fossil fuels. It’s not realistic to fix climate change by putting MORE carbon into the sky, but the messaging seems to be that climate change is only a problem for Democrats. Fine, but nobody told climate change that it is not allowed to kill Republicans. A few Republicans like Jen Kiggans of Virginia Beach are trying to preserve the clean energy tax credits that are driving the clean energy job expansion, but it appears that GOP leadership just wants to go back to coal, gasoline, and methane, and hand the jobs to China.

If we focus on Virginia alone, and ignore this horrifying context, we have a big challenge in keeping up with the steeply rising electricity demand that is driven by the data center boom. So- instead of making rooftop solar less financially attractive for homeowners, shouldn’t we actually be thanking them for bringing new power into the grid? Just a thought.
Sincerely
Chris Wiegard

1 Replies

Fiesty! I like that you carved out and praised Jen Kiggans as a Republican who is speaking up in the right ways on these topics. Nice job.

Thanks as always for writing, @Chris Wiegard!

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