To the editor: Over a typical 25-year life span, a rooftop solar system costs about 6 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. Most installers have finance programs where the monthly cost is less than the utility bill. Instead of putting road blocks in front of rooftop solar, utilities should encourage and embrace it. (“California proposes big changes to rooftop solar incentives,” Dec. 13)
Our solar installation generates twice the power we use, and the utility under net metering pays us only 3 cents per kilowatt hour for the other half and sells it for up to 36 cents. That sounds like a win-win for them.
With the addition of homeowner and community battery backup, solar will be a 24/7 power source. The future business model for utilities will be the management of distributed local power, mostly from wind and solar.
Rooftop solar is part of the solution, not the problem.
Dennis Arntz, Laguna Niguel
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To the editor: Despite the cost, we felt pretty good about our recent home solar investment.
Now we are feeling we would have been better off investing our $24,000 in Southern California Edison stock. That company is the real shaper of California’s future.
Michael Wall, Three Rivers, Calif.
