#ncga: Solar school scheme seeking growth in NC besieged by lawsuits in SC
Remember the guys who were seeking the General Assembly’s permission to use government money to develop school buildings (with a bunch of solar panels on them, of course) that can then be leased BACK to local governments?
Well, this development group has been hard at work in the Myrtle Beach area. So far, we’ve heard about non-transparency issues,. fights with local officials, a SLED probe, and now some serious lawyering up:
A Lake City-based construction company sued Horry County Schools and other contractors for allegedly failing to fully pay for work on four new Horry County schools.
According to the lawsuit, F&B Mechanical claims it supplied “labor, materials and equipment” in the construction of the new schools — St. James Intermediate, Socastee Elementary, Myrtle Beach Middle and Socastee Middle. The total cost of the projects was $260,274, but the company says it only has been paid $69,670.
F&B Mechanical is suing the school district and five companies — Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, First Floor Energy Positive, Integrated Contracting Group, Metcon Inc., and TA Loving Inc. — to collect the alleged $190,604 debt.
[…]
It is the second lawsuit filed against HCS and First Floor in the past year. In September, the two entities were hit with multiple lawsuits asking for more than $778,000 after a subcontractor allegedly didn’t pay its supplier, court filings state.
Capital Materials of Savannah filed five complaints against Hester Drywall claiming it had not fully paid Capital for “labor, material and/or equipment” supplied for work on Ten Oaks Middle, St. James Intermediate, Socastee Elementary, Socastee Middle and Myrtle Beach Middle schools.[…]
First Floor Energy Positive and Metcon have been aggressively lobbying the General Assembly and local governments across the state to bring this type of deal north of the border.
Solar Energy Companies are having problems. We do not need Solar Energy if this is going to happen!!!
Wind and solar drive up electric rates for consumers. They are the reason that Germans pay three times as much for electricity as North Carolinians do and why electric rates have doubled in 12 months in two of Australia’s states. We need to bring the march of the solar goons and wind goons to a screeching halt before they do that to North Carolina. Wind and solar are expensive and unreliable. Unfortunately, we have too many in our own party who prostitute themselves to this ripoff special interest.
It is a boondoggle dependent on an intricate mesh of government subsidies and greasing of political palms. Yank the threads a bit and it all falls apart, leaving the tax-payer to clean up financially and environmentally. The Swamp reaches into the so-called renewable energy sector, big time.
There’s a future for solar at the private residential level, especially as home power storage units like those Tesla is introducing become more available…but for primary suppliers, going this way is not in the public’s interest. Basically, it’s a stealth tax.
I have made it a point to fight against these solar mandates since I was elected in 2012. The solar situation in NC is driven by politics not economics and science. Troxhandler, above , has a grasp of the problem, for residential use solar can be a benefit but for others it is a waste of time and money. The key to the success and future of solar generated power is battery storage. For small residential use battery backup systems are available. For anything larger we DO NOT have the technology yet thus the big solar arrays (some call them solar farms) are producing power that the utility companies are basically buying and then dumping back into the ground. Utility companies are forced to buy the power at a cost point that insures the solar generating companies make a profit (in addition to state subsidies) and the rate payers are making up the difference so everyone makes a profit. The best way is always to let the free market solve these issues but sometimes politics gets in the way.
The NC Republican platform calls for our energy policies to be governed by the free market. I applaud legislators like Mark Brody who follow the GOP platform instead of getting tied up in a crony capitalist boondoggle.
Our current energy laws are NOT free market or anything close.
I have never held it a secret that this individual fails to understand the reasoning that some use to justify support of solar as it is not offered in free market principle. There is no avenue for investment.
I DO NOT blame a land owner for their decision to take advanntage of an opportunity to protect or better themselves for whatever reason. The property rights are theirs to exercise. The troubling problem for me is that too many electeds dont consider that it is them that are responsible for making it possible that SOooooo many other citizens pay the price.
Browny Douglas