My Sources

ChristopeherPluta, "Old Newspaper" 14/05/21 via pixabay

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Ralston Live: Interviews with Lyndon Rive and Anne-Marie Cuneo

Ralston Live is a Las Vegas talk show hosted by Jon Ralston, a reporter and news analyst who has been on air for over fourteen years. Ralston is relatively unbiased: he plays as opposition in both of the above interviews with SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive and Nevada Public Utilities Commission staffer Anne-Marie Cuneo. Despite this, the program is supported by NV Energy, one of the stakeholders in this controversy.

Rive pushes the motivation for the rate hikes as being for the benefit of NV Energy, proposing that they want to limit a market that they have not been able to deploy yet. Cuneo appears on the show to support the PUC's decision to hike solar-user rates: a recommendation on her part. She states that she suggested this plan as she found the model SolarCity's rates are on to be outdated and that they overstated net metering benefits.

Ralston's interviews prove to be a valuable source for my project, as seeing two of the characters at the center of this story debate their positions with a "devil's advocate" provided information I did not learn from reading articles previously.

Las Vegas Review Journal articles by Sean Whaley

[1], [2], [3]

I chose these three articles as they present a chronology of the inciting events at the heart of this controversy, all written for the same publication and by the same author, Sean Whaley. Sean Whaley is a reporter with over twenty years of experience, focusing on events in the Nevada capitol. Both the publication's location and Whaley's are in the central setting of the controversy, making his accounts very valuable.

The first article concerns the Public Utilities Commission's rejection of the bid for continuing the net metering program of August 12th 2015, net metering being a program that allows solar-panel users to sell their excess energy back to the grid. The second article then covers the catalyst for the rate change, as on August 20th, the cap on net metering is reached, allowing NV Energy to propose new rates, which solar groups find highly unfavorable. Finally, in the third article, the Public Utilities Commission announces the new rates on December 31st, which make solar power economically nonviable in Nevada. SolarCity then lays off over 500 employees and ceases operations in the state.

Group aims to bust NV Energy monopoly

Here I obtained an article that shows consumers' reaction to the controversy. On February 4th, the rate hikes prompted customers to petition for the deregulation of Nevada energy, allowing them choice with their utility providers.

This news story comes from the Reno Gazette-Journal, a publication that is located in Nevada, and is therefore getting a firsthand account of the action. The writer of the piece is Anjeanette Damon, who proclaims herself as a government watchdog. This might be a sign that some of the story may have a bias against NV Energy and the Public Utilities Commission.

SolarCity Launches First-of-its-Kind Solar Service in Nevada
Following Nevada PUC's Decision to Punish Rooftop Solar Customers, SolarCity Forced to Eliminate More than 550 Jobs in Nevada

The above two links are press releases released by SolarCity, the major provider of solar energy in Nevada. As such, they have an obvious bias against NV Energy and the PUC. The pieces are written to be read by SolarCity's clients. Here we get a time range for the controversy: When they arrive in Nevada in May of 2014, up until they ultimately lay off 500 employees after the PUC's decision.

Nevada's Solar Bait-and-Switch

Above is a view on the controversy from a national news source, The New York Times. Published on February 1st, the article doubles as being informative and as an opinion piece: Jacques Leslie weighs in on the motivations of the Public Utilities Commission for hindering the feasibility of implementing solar power. He identifies a similar motivation as Lyndon Rive does, stating that "to increase profits, utilities must expand operations, but the emergence of distributed energy reduces need for expansion." Jacques Leslie attended Yale and has written books on the subjects of economics and the environment. He also has interests in infrastructure, giving his hypothesis some credibility.

Why SolarCity Corp.'s Shares Plunged 15% Today

Finally, I present an article that involves SolarCity's literal stakeholders. Travis Hoium, University of Minnesota gradate and stock analyst writing for The Motley Fool shows that events do not happen in a vacuum. Hoium identifies the Nevada Public Utilities Commission's decision to not stay the current rates on January 14th as dropping confidence in SolarCity, prompting a stock plunge. The Motley Fool is a business and finance publication, and actually has stock in SolarCity.