Following a slapdown by the Arizona Corporation Commission, maybe now Arizona Public Service is feeling the cost of being a slow-to-innovate dinosaur, and maybe it will adjust its thinking and attitude.
The monopoly utility reminds one of The Borg. The Borg lost in Star Trek and APS lost here because of an ancient, egotistic mindset. Corporation Commissioner Bob Burns said it best when he counseled APS to evaluate its business model to address the incredible innovations like solar and other emerging technologies.
APS is Kodak before digital cameras. It’s Xerox before the Internet. It is fax machines, it is flip phones, encyclopedias, phone booths, cursive handwriting, snail mail, and roll-down car windows.
And it is still in denial about what happened yesterday but more on that later.
So this time it was rooftop solar but what’s going to happen when the next hot, new technology comes along, flourishes and threatens APS’ guaranteed profits? More digging in of the heels and using all of its influence and ratepayer funds to fight yet another battle against progress?
The profit guarantee needs to be evaluated in light of the solar fight. Other states are taking a closer look at the model and Arizona needs to do the same. It’s just not built for the future.
Back to APS in denial. In his statement following the ACC decision, APS (Another Pathetic Spin) honcho Don Brandt did not come across as a man who has learned anything from the experience. In fact, it is safe to say APS is doubling down on its bid to become the next thing that people talk about with a touch of nostalgia and sadness (“Remember APS? That was when we had an energy system run by a huge monopoly…”).
Here’s Donnie in Denial from the APS press release: “The ACC determined that net metering creates a cost shift. We applaud the ACC for cutting through the rhetoric and focusing on how the cost shift impacts non-solar customers.”
Still clinging to the “cost shift” propaganda. Notice the lack of verbiage mentioning how APS failed to properly anticipate the success of solar. Funny how he applauds the ACC for “cutting through the rhetoric.” Is he referring to the APS rhetoric that it spent millions of dollars from its own customers to use against its own solar customers?
More sour grapes from Donnie in Denial:
“Of course, having determined that a problem exists, we would have preferred for the ACC to fix it. The proposal adopted by the ACC, and surprisingly championed by the state’s consumer advocate RUCO, falls well short of protecting the interests of the one million residential customers who do not have solar panels. We will continue to advocate forcefully for the best interests of our customers and for a sustainable solar policy for Arizona.”
Note how he manages to insult RUCO with the little “surprisingly championed” phrase? And, again, no mea culpa from APS, no mention of its greed, its profit margin, its wasting of millions to attack its customers, its stretching of the truth about funding shady front groups….
Just another day in the life of a monopoly.
