It’s easy to marvel at the U.S.’ largest solar plant, located in the Mojave Desert: The Ivanpah concentrating solar power plant takes advantage of abundant sunlight to create almost as much electricity as a tr
Net metering benefits all electricity ratepayers and provides more benefits than it costs. We've said it time and time again. So have an increasing number of studies, institutes and academics.
The most recent voice to join the choir is the Brookings Institute. They released a paper in May that reviewed a number of studies on the costs and benefits of rooftop solar. As the authors state:
A new report from the Brookings Institution said net metering benefits all parties when every cost and benefit is factored in, and doesn't significantly shift grid maintenance costs to non-rooftop solar customers.
Solar power could deliver $400 billion in environmental and public health benefits in the United States by 2050, according to a study from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Solar is already delivering annual benefits of $1.5 billion. Those benefits come in the form of:
Senator Eldridge introduced an amendment to the Senate budget calling for restoring retail NM credit value to community and low-income solar, and providing an additional lift in the private caps.
Please thank Senator Eldridge for his leadership, and ask your own senator to support the amendment.
Bad news for efforts to combate climate change emissions in the power sector. For the first time in five years, power plants across New England are producing more carbon dioxide emissions. This is a major setback to Massachusetts’ legally mandated efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The primary reason for the increase in emissions is the shuttering of the region's nuclear power plants, which has increased reliance on fossil fuel power stations.
The DPU finally raised the net metering caps 3% last week, which was required by the solar legislation passed over a month ago.
At the time the solar legislation was passed, many in the Senate and House thought the net metering cap increase would be enough to last 9 months to a year.
The legislature has raised net metering caps but the DPU has yet to act. As a result, the net metering caps have now been hit across all of Massachusetts, except for Nantucket. This morning, MassACA reports that there are 241 MW of solar projects on hold across all the IOU territories. That means every territory except for Nantucket has projects on hold.
