LETTERS: NV Energy must adapt to solar power
To the editor:
Regarding Tom Keller’s letter (“Don’t forget, taxpayers provide subsidies for rooftop solar users,” May 30 Review-Journal), the headline should have read, “Taxpayers provide subsidies for rooftop solar users, but ratepayers don’t.” The federal government provides a 30 percent tax credit to encourage homeowners to install solar as an important way to reduce carbon emissions. However, a study commissioned by the Public Utilities Commission found that nonsolar users do not subsidize solar users.
To explain, when a solar user produces more energy than can be used at the time, the solar user gives the excess energy to NV Energy. Both NV Energy and the solar user keep track of the balance of these gifts using a two-way meter. NV Energy then sells the received energy to a nearby neighbor for full price. Thus, very little grid infrastructure is used.
If the neighbor is part of NV Energy’s Time of Use program, NV Energy can charge the neighbor as much as 37 cents per kWh for the free energy. The energy company reimburses the solar user in the form of energy in kind on an as-needed basis. If the solar user gives more power than NV Energy ever needs to retrieve, NV Energy keeps the excess. If there comes a time when a solar user has exhausted his balance, then the solar user pays full price for the extra energy needed.
Mr. Keller’s letter asserts that rates have to rise, but with rooftop solar users in its system, NV Energy will simply need to cut back its purchases of natural gas — reducing carbon emissions — and reduce the size of its business to control costs. The need to downsize utilities is nationwide, because many forms of clean energy are becoming available.
RICHARD SCHORI
HENDERSON
ACA’s ‘Cadillac tax’
To the editor:
As Brian Aiken’s letter points out, the Affordable Care Act provides affordable health care for very low-income workers, with their policies subsidized by taxes and fees imposed on middle-class workers (“There is no defending Obamacare debacle,” May 26 Review-Journal). Rep. Dina Titus would like to exempt union workers from tax increases on their lavish “Cadillac” insurance policies, which would certainly result in higher premiums for nonunion workers.
Members of Congress have exempted themselves from the ACA taxes and fees, and now Rep. Titus wants to exempt union workers. She wisely makes no mention of the consequences of the bill to eliminate the “Cadillac tax.” President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats promised the American public that the ACA was going to lower health insurance premiums. Either the president was misinformed or he told the biggest lie in the history of this country.
MIKE ANTHONY
LAS VEGAS
Taxing for education
To the editor:
Just like Sen. Harry Reid and most Democrats, Review-Journal columnist Steve Sebelius has never met a tax he didn’t like. Mr. Sebelius disparages nine Republican Assembly members for saying “no” to more taxation (“The last day arrives,” May 31 Review-Journal). Mr. Sebelius and fellow liberals apparently don’t care about the confines of a budget when other people’s money is involved.
The progressives all play the same card for spending more money: education. Baltimore is one dismal example of failure in spending money to achieve learning success. Chicago is another. They are both near the top in per-pupil education spending, with pitiful results to show for it.
When the education empire quits enriching its unions and administrators, and quits playing nanny, restaurant and daycare to students and instead demands results from students, that’s when things will change. Billions of dollars a year, no strings attached, on the backs of taxpayers is not a good deal for Nevadans.
RON MOERS
HENDERSON
