FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 6th, 2015
Contact:
Dan Millis, dan.millis@sierraclub.org, 520-620-6401
Dr. Barbara Warren, bwarre01@gmail.com, 520-250-1075
Chad Waits, Net Zero Solar, chadwaits@netzerosolar.net, 520-207-4053
Tucson Electric Power Seeks Rate Hike While Fighting Local Rooftop Solar
Tucson -- Tucson Electric Power filed its rate case with the Arizona Corporation Commission yesterday. The rate case includes doubling the basic monthly service charge for residential customers from $10 to $20, which will have the greatest impact on low-income families, while also imposing new fees, penalties, and charges on rooftop solar customers.
“TEP needs to come up with a creative solution to cover its increased costs,” said Oscar Medina, educator and community organizer with Tierra Y Libertad. “TEP’s proposed customer charge increases are regressive, and they are an attack on working class families. This economic and pollution-based response is environmental injustice!”
“The Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance Community Action Team stands in agreement with other community leaders and concerned citizens in reference to TEP’s proposed rate increases,” said Reverend Amos L. Lewis, Senior Pastor at Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church. “We encourage TEP to come up with safer and more creative ways to cover its rising costs. We are here to defend the poor and working families. We speak truth to power on their behalf. Prov. 31:8-9 - 8 ‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. 9 Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.’ (NIV)”
“TEP can be a shining example of success in our sunny state by promoting affordable solar energy, eliminating all dependence on heart, lung, and other disease producingfossil fuels and providing clean, safe, renewable energy, which is now cheaper than fossil fuels,” said Dr. Barbara Warren of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Savings made possible by the transition to more affordable clean energy need to be shared with TEP customers, but instead TEP is proposing to charge ratepayers even more. Let's build a stronger economy and a healthier community by investing in clean energy here at home.”
“In both Nevada and Colorado, public utility commissions have determined that the benefits of rooftop solar to the grid easily outweigh any financial losses to utilities,” said Katharine J. Kent of the Solar Store. “The Arizona Corporation Commission should come to the same conclusion and protect rooftop solar from attacks by TEP.”
“TEP is singling out solar customers with their proposal to increase fees - which is not only wrong, but unprecedented,” said Chad Waits, president and owner of Net Zero Solar. “Rural customers don’t have to pay more to be connected to the grid, yet the infrastructure to take power to them costs exponentially more per customer. Winter visitors don’t have to pay more to be connected to the grid, yet their houses use minimal amounts of power while they are away during the summer. When determining costs of solar, TEP should also recognize the value that solar adds in reducing carbon emissions, reducing line losses, and mitigating costs of building new power plants. Only then will solar customers be credited the true cost of their investments in generation capacity that TEP uses every day for free.”
"Arizonans are ready for a clean energy future, but TEP is holding us back,” said Dan Millis, Beyond Coal Organizer for the Sierra Club Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. “This rate case proposes raising rates in the most regressive way possible -- by doubling the basic service charge that every customer pays, which will impact low-income families most of all. Instead of recognizing the benefits solar rooftop customers provide, TEP is attacking customers who want to ‘go solar’ and generate their own power. This action affects the affordability of solar, and can contribute to a decline of our local solar industry.”
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