An overview of net metering issues – with a possible model resolving some of them.
“one can oppose net metering and still favor “energy choice.” In fact, net metering is in the end incompatible with energy choice since net metering requires a grid connection and a cross-subsidy from grid-connected, non-net metered customers to survive. Giving energy choice to the customers subsidizing their solar-paneled neighbors will, if the burden grows large enough, push unsubsidized customers off the grid.”
Around the country lobbyists for utilities and solar power companies are fighting over public policy, mostly for and against reform of net metering policies.* Today, The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) trumpeted in a press release recent victories in the states of Utah and Washington over net metering reforms urged by utilities. TASC highlighted the involvement of conservative policy group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which joined the battle over net metering via a January 2014 resolution calling for “policies to require that everyone who uses the grid helps pay to maintain it and to keep it operating reliably at all times.”
In the TASC press release the group makes the odd and laughable claim:
Net metering allows rooftop solar customers to … receive full retail credit for any excess electricity sent back to the grid. Utilities turn around and sell this energy at the full retail rate to…
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