Self promotion, blah, blah…
New net-metering regulations, which followed from legislation of which I was the lead sponsor, are being implemented today. (Josh Miller did the heavy lifting on the Senate side.) Net-metering ensures that developers of renewable technology get credited for the electricity that they generate, encouraging such development by making it much easier to recoup one’s investment. Check out RIFuture for details.
It’s like when the heat/electric is included in the rent….
Woah, after reading the law… Am I to understand that if I generate -more- juice than I use, I get a $0-bill and have to -donate- the excess energy credits to low-income people?!?
That just pulls the incentive to produce power from wind away. Most places you would get a -check- from the electric company for the wholesale cost of the net energy you produced. That’s why most places have people doing this already.
The check you get from the electric company is the market force that would inspire people to produce, there’s no way I’m investing thousands of dollars of capital into a backyard solar/wind project if the excess energy is going to get -donated-.
The irony is that by making this law all touchy-feely ‘let’s donate the energy to the poor’, we lessen the need for the poor to get more efficient with their consumption, AND we still have no incentive for people to produce their own clean power.
Here’s to another few years with no significant hydroelectric, wave, solar, or wind developments coming from small private entities.
If anything, we should be massively subsidizing the construction of small alternate energy projects by making low-interest loans to people interested in building them, then allowing them to get the aforementioned wholesale net-metering checks for their effort.
I guess this is progress, since now the electric company won’t just get to -keep- the energy you produced, but the end result for the guy who wants to stick a turbine in his back yard is the same.
Good policy: I’m holding a check from National Grid for $100 for producing a lot more juice than I used, the caption says, “My rooftop turbine is paying itself off!”
This policy: I’m holding a Bill for $0 from NatGrid with a caption saying, “Thanks for nothing!”. Also, a low-income family in the background leaving the lights on for free.