How stalling South Carolina’s solar progress endangers national security

Investing in a modern energy system that makes use of South Carolina’s plentiful renewable resources will make our electric grid more secure and our state more competitive.

For the good of consumers, our vulnerable populations and our national security, it’s important that lawmakers find another way to advance and not hinder South Carolinians’ right to expand pathways to solar.

H.4421 would have raised restrictive caps on the number of consumers who have the freedom to harness sunshine to lower their bills.

But the bill, co-sponsored by leading Republicans and Democrats, was defeated just days after the House had tentatively approved it by a 2-to-1 margin.

In addition to giving consumers more control and choices over South Carolina’s high electricity bills, this commonsense solar policy also would have had another significant benefit that’s been largely overlooked: When we enable decentralized power to flourish — when we allow families and businesses to generate their own local electricity for themselves and their communities — we are able to move away from an outdated centralized power system that is unnecessarily vulnerable to both natural disasters and man-made attacks.

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Death of solar energy bill shows SCE&G, other utilities still write SC energy policy

If we use solar, why should utilities get to charge us for electricity we don’t use?

Haven’t the electric monopolies hurt us enough already?

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For the Department of Defense, the transition to renewable energy is mission-critical. That is why military bases in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and other locations have all gone solar. I’ve worked to expand partnerships on this very topic under a Defense and Energy department memorandum of understanding.

Under the current arrangement, a teenaged hacker could seriously disrupt the power grid, and our way of life, by bringing down a single power plant.

But it’s very difficult to disrupt tens of thousands of citizen-owned rooftop solar systems that provide that same amount of power. Such redundancy offers options, peace of mind and financial flexibility to the consumer. Affording all South Carolinians the right to benefit from clean-energy technology removes a critical vulnerability for anyone to exploit us by destabilizing our electric grid.

Now more than ever, it is important to empower customers to diversify and strengthen our energy grid with solar power. H.4421 was an important step on that path. I hope everyone will urge their legislators to get this back on track.

The State publishes a cross section of the letters we receive from South Carolinians in order to provide a forum for our community and also to allow our community to get a good look at itself, for good or bad. The letters represent the views of the letter writers, not necessarily of The State.

This story was originally published April 25, 2018 at 6:01 PM with the headline "How stalling South Carolina’s solar progress endangers national security."