CleanTechies
  • Home
  • Articles
    • Clean Transportation
    • Energy Efficiency
    • Green Building
    • Renewable Energy
    • Recycling & Waste
    • Water & Conservation
  • Contact
    • Editorial
      • General Inquiries
      • Article Submission
    • Advertising
      • Advertising & Sponsorship
      • Guidelines
      • Media Kit
  • Are you a CleanTechie?

CleanTechies

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Clean Transportation
    • Energy Efficiency
    • Green Building
    • Renewable Energy
    • Recycling & Waste
    • Water & Conservation
  • Contact
    • Editorial
      • General Inquiries
      • Article Submission
    • Advertising
      • Advertising & Sponsorship
      • Guidelines
      • Media Kit
  • Are you a CleanTechie?
Tag:

investor-owned utilities

Connecticut Shared Solar – Looking Ahead to 2015

Connecticut Shared Solar – Looking Ahead to 2015

written by The Vote Solar Initiative

Despite strong stakeholder support and policymaker leadership, Connecticut’s shared clean energy legislation will not move forward this year. This is merely a speed bump on the road to shared solar success in CT. We are excited about how far we came with the hard work of our local partners, and we look forward to building on that momentum in the months ahead to get the job done in 2015.

Energy Committee Co-chairs Senator Bob Duff and Representative Lonnie Reed brokered some of the most above-board negotiations we’ve seen in a while between clean energy advocates and CT’s investor-owned utilities, Connecticut Light & Power (parent company = Northeast Utilities) and United Illuminating. Yet despite the legislators’ leadership, and the support and guidance of strong clean energy champions within the Malloy Administration’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), ultimately we were not able to reach agreement on a good program for Connecticut energy customers. These were the elements that fell short:

  • Fair compensation to customers for their portion of the clean energy produced by shared systems. Customers who participate in shared solar projects are investing their own private dollars in clean energy that benefits the whole state. They deserve fair credit on their utility bills for the benefits that clean, local, peak power provides. We weren’t able to reach agreement with the utilities on what that credit should be.
  • The ability for the utilities to request rate changes outside of the normal public stakeholder process for doing so (a “rate case”). This provision, proposed by the utilities, would have enacted sweeping new authority for the utilities to ask for any kind of rate changes they’d like, without the context and broad stakeholder participation that occurs in a rate case. This would have had implications far beyond shared solar. For example, the utilities could have proposed a high fixed monthly charge that ALL Connecticut energy customers would have to pay (The utilities would claim the charge was needed to make up for their loss of revenue from customers going solar. We, of course, would point out that the added value of the clean, local solar energy more than makes up for that loss.) Ultimately, the risk of unjustified charges on Connecticut ratepayers’ utility bills was not something clean energy advocates could support.

Fortunately, Representative Reed, the good folks at the Governor’s office, DEEP, and the Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority have all expressed interest in finding a way to make shared solar a reality next year. Connecticut families, schools and businesses deserve a strong shared solar program. It’s too important for the majority of Connecticut customers for whom the traditional panels-on-your-roof model for solar just doesn’t work. Connecticut has implemented some of the most innovative clean energy programs in the nation, and we’re confident they’ll get shared clean energy right in 2015!



May 5, 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest

Distributed Generation Means Trying Times for Investor-Owned Utilities

written by Walter Wang

Here’s a good article that discusses a few different vicious cycles in which the investor-owned utilities (IOUs) find themselves. As more people install solar (or whatever) on their properties, the infrastructure by which power is generated, transmitted, and distributed must be amortized over a smaller base,

Continue Reading


January 1, 2014 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest

Residential Electric Rates Revisited – Part 1: A Historical Perspective

written by Walter Wang

Residential rates always seem to be in the news for one reason or another. These days, residential rates are the subject of pending legislation (AB 327) and an ongoing rulemaking at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) (R.12-06-013). To help add some context to the discussion, we will be writing a series of blog posts to address the history of how we

Continue Reading


June 12, 2013 2 comments
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest

CleanTechnica.TV

Listen to CleanTech Talk

CleanTech Talk

Free CleanTechnica Newsletters

CleanTechnica's main newsletter (daily)

CleanTechnica's EV newsletter

CleanTechnica's wind newsletter

CleanTechnica's solar newsletter

CleanTechnica's weekly newsletter

Support Our Work

CleanTechnica Clothing & Cups

Recent CleanTechie Bios

Amy McMorrow Hunter

Keith Allen

Tom Scheel

Patrick Corcoran

Christine Bennett

Mike Casey

Henk Rogers

JB Straubel

Lynn Jurich

Matt Moroney

Kyle Field

Paul Francis

Chelsea Harder

Griff Jurgens

Scott Cooney

The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by, and do not necessarily represent the views of CleanTechnica, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.


Back To Top