Promote electric vehicles, heat pumps, inductive cooktops, and other decarbonization that would increase electricity demand since you've got a plethora of electricity? Nope.
Incentivize home energy storage and invest in grid level energy storage and encourage purchasing EVs that can be used as grid batteries? Nope.
Invest in better grid-level interconnects to export electricity? Nope.
Work with the community to attract industry that uses lots of electricity and approach commercial/industrial users to find ways to decarbonize? Nope.
Ban customers from new grid-intertied solar: YES.
Engage in scare-mongering about solar causing fires and being dangerous or causing grid instability when grid-intertie systems have a slew of safety mechanisms? YES.
Absolute morons.
Also buried in that article: they signed a contract with their wholesale provider mandating that they can only generate 5% of their own electricity. The article claims, but does not explain, how this doesn't limit solar generation - there's a bunch of hand-waiving about how "it doesn't prohibit homeowners from generating solar power."
That contract goes until 2050. Who looked at the electricity market and said "you know what? Let's sign a multi-decade contract, that seems smart!"?
Energy production is a huge moneymaker that also happens to be government owned/taxed to a large degree in many countries. Solar panels and batteries are at the point where they will completely disrupt this entire industry.
Many incumbents will try their best to prevent it, and to be fair it's not entirely for malicious reasons. Energy taxes and income from power plants pay for a lot of community value. The income has to be replaced somehow if it is removed.
I think that solar + various storage options are technically already the best solution for energy supply, and this kind of political inertia is the main obstacle to overcome in order to make it a reality.
Keep in mind, that contract was signed way back in 2000 and things were pretty different back then. I also believe it was signed by a primarily conservative LPEA board.
Wouldn't the tent have been damaged had the avalanche actually caused such severe bodily injuries? From what I remember, the tent only had a knife cut in it, done from the inside.
