Plenty of subsidies for traditional energy sources
Your April 5 editorial opposed Assembly Bill 270 — which will restore the rooftop solar energy business to Nevada — because the proposal represents a subsidy to the industry. This ignores the “subsidy” granted to the investors in traditional energy when they are guaranteed a 10 percent return on their investment.
This subsidy ends up being paid for by the ratepayers every time they receive a bill. Distributed production of energy represents a technology enabled disruption, requiring recognition that the old way of doing business is no longer viable. IBM had to recognize the change when mainframe computers were replaced by desktops, Ma Bell had to accommodate the proliferation of cellphones and blacksmiths had to learn how to change a tire. NV Energy and its investors need to come into the 21st century and learn to compete with distributed energy.
