NRG Energy sees shining future for solar

David Crane likes to compete with himself.

For Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy (NRG), the biggest independent producer of electricity in the U.S., conventional coal, natural gas and nuclear plants provide the bulk of his company's $3.8 billion in revenue.

But Crane foresees a day not so far off when new technologies like rooftop solar and batteries will turn the electric power industry upside down, and NRG is moving in that direction.

"I think electricity today is where the telecom industry was about 1990," Crane said in an interview with USA TODAY. "The fixed line is still out there, right? But I can't tell you the last time I made a long-distance call from my home phone."

What's coming, he said, is a transition "over the next generation" from a system nearly totally reliant on a network of coal, natural gas and nuclear plants to one where homes and businesses can increasingly meet their own electricity needs with rooftop solar panels and batteries, and even go off the grid.

NRG's commitment to distributed solar is showing results, as was evident in the Princeton, N.J.-based company's financial results for the first quarter of 2015.

NRG increased its distributed solar business by nearly 3,000 customers from January through March, bringing it to more than 16,000 in 10 states. The growth might have been even greater except for heavy snowfalls covering roofs in the Northeast, where much of NRG's solar business is located.

All told, NRG is aiming for as many as 40,000 solar customers by the end of 2015, with an eye to eventually becoming a strong rival to SolarCity (SCTY), the industry leader with more than 218,000 installations.

The potential for enabling a complete break with the grid looms even larger with new developments in battery technology, like one unveiled recently by Tesla that charges using electricity from solar panels and powers homes at night.

In fact, Crane's home is a test bed for an engine developed by Segway inventor Dean Kamen that uses a dwelling's natural-gas service to generate electricity and works with a battery to store power from solar panels.

"I'm very bullish on the idea that within three to five years people will be able to go off the grid," Crane said. "And whether it's the technologies we're investing in or not, ultimately I want to have the partnership with consumers where people who want to go off the grid will come to us for the best way to do it."

Does Crane appear concerned about resistance to rooftop solar by some utilities in the U.S.?

Hardly. He said he has "no time for the debate" over whether state policies promoting rooftop solar punish non-solar customers by leaving them with a greater share of a utility's operating costs. One of those policies, known as "net metering," requires utilities to compensate homeowners for solar power they generate but don't use.

"What will happen is that when people can go all the way off the grid, the debate over whether net metering is fair to people who don't have solar panels will become moot because people will have gone completely beyond the reach of the system," he said.

Crane also dismisses as "exaggerated" claims by some utilities that the solar panels installed by their competitors end up primarily on homes in higher-income neighborhoods.

"In New Jersey, where our solar home business had its start, the demographic actually skews toward blue collar," he said.

In short, Crane maintains that utilities are resisting rooftop solar out of fear.

"They're very resistant because right now under the current system they have a monopoly, and there's nothing better in business than having a monopoly and not having to deal with competition."

Loveless – @bill_loveless on Twitter – is a veteran energy journalist and television commentator in Washington. He is a former host of the TV program Platts Energy Week.