According to the Department of Energy, net metering programs serve as an important incentive for consumer investment in renewable energy generation. Net metering enables customers to use their own generation to offset their consumption over a billing period by allowing their electric meters to turn backwards when they generate electricity in excess of their demand. You really have to see it to believe it.
Click here to see a video of Solar Energy Industry Association President Rhone Resch’s meter turning backwards (Facebook account required).
This offset means that customers receive retail prices for the excess electricity they generate. Without net metering, a second meter is usually installed to measure the electricity that flows back to the provider, with the provider purchasing the power at a rate much lower than the retail rate.
Net metering is a low-cost, easily administered method of encouraging customer investment in renewable energy technologies. It increases the value of the electricity produced by renewable generation and allows customers to “bank” their energy and use it a different time than it is produced giving customers more flexibility and allowing them to maximize the value of their production. Providers may also benefit from net metering because when customers are producing electricity during peak periods, the system load factor is improved.
Sunetric strongly supports Hawaii Senate Bill No. 2488, which requires electrical utilities to compensate net metering surplus customer-generators for excess electricity generated by the customer-generators at the end of the twelve-month reconciliation period. It directs the Public Utility Commission to determine the net surplus compensation rate.
Currently, net metering is offered in more than 35 states (see the summary table and map). For a more detailed description of state net metering policies and links to the authorizing legislation, see the DSIRE database, which is a project of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council funded by the U.S. DOE and managed by the North Carolina Solar Center.
More on Hawaii’s net metering legislation.
For a deeper perspective, SolarPowerRocks.com has crafted a great response to a reader’s question about Net Metering.
