Watch out! Net metering wars soon may be coming to northern Minnesota.
Everyone should know about and understand the net metering issue because it will have a profound effect on all of our lives.
Net metering will be a key factor in determining if Minnesota will move forward with clean, safe, nonpolluting renewable energy or stay mired in the past by getting most of its energy from out-of-state dirty and dangerous coal-burning plants.
NET METERING DEFINED
What is net metering? Net metering involves situations where home owners choose to set up solar panels or a small wind turbine on their property so they can generate clean, renewable electricity for themselves.
They can then connect their system to the power grid of their utility company, and send energy they generate back into the system. The utility company is required to either buy the electricity homeowners generate, or reduce their utility bill based on how much power they produce. The utility pays retail price for this electricity.
Sounds like a simple win-win situation for everyone, doesn't it?
Well, for many utility companies around the country, it is. They love net metering, have embraced it, and actively encourage their customers to add solar and wind units to their homes.
THEY DON'T LIKE IT
But many energy providers despise the very concept of net metering – especially electric cooperatives that tend to serve rural, sparsely populated areas like here in northern Minnesota.
Such is the case with Roseau Electric Cooperative (REC). One can definitely mark them down in the “we hate net metering” column, based on the information in its April "Volts & Jolts" newsletter, and the dire warnings it gave to members at its Annual Meeting on March 24.
Writing in the REC newsletter Joel Johnson, the Minnesota Rural Electric Cooperative Government Affairs officer, blasted current state net metering policy as “unsustainable,” “expensive,” and claimed that those who took the initiative to save money, and become energy independent with clean, nonpolluting energy, are shifting costs off onto their neighbors.
This cost shift, Johnson claims, happens because solar-energy folks are still using the infrastructure of the utility cooperative –poles, the power lines, substations, labor – but have now reduced their contributions by buying less energy and then selling “expensive” solar power back to the utility.
Johnson even complains that current Minnesota policy encourages home-grown solar generating people to “oversize” their systems and generate “unnecessary, "expensive” electricity from the sun and wind. (That is, they might actually generate too much clean, nonpolluting solar electricity!)
The Roseau co-op management also point out that they are already required to meet an aggressive standard on supplying clean, renewable energy. Minnesota has set a goal that 25% of all energy be obtained from nonpolluting renewable sources by 2025.
So you might think that innovative and hard-working local folks contributing solar power via net metering to the total capacity of Roseau Electric would be helping them meet this goal – but they don’t see it that way.
Why not? It’s difficult to understand.
SOLAR ENERGY NOT ONLY VIABLE, BUT ALREADY WORKING
Roseau Electric Cooperative is good at complaining about solar energy -- how it causes neighbor to cheat neighbor, they say, and warning us about how “expensive” it is. They also frequently suggest in their statements that solar energy is “not yet viable.”
That would come as a surprise to other Minnesota utilities who have embraced solar energy, and find it not only viable, but that it is helping them drive toward compliance with the 25% by 2025 standard.
Just take a look at the Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association. It is extremely important to note that Wright-Hennepin is a member-owned cooperative as is REC here in northern Minnesota.
Unlike the Roseau Utility management, the Wright-Hennepin Co-op has taken a leadership role and pushed forward to build a community solar array that will generate 40 kilowatt hours of clean, nonpolluting solar electricity for its members.
Wright-Hennepin has established a large solar array located at its headquarters in Rockford, Minn. All members can voluntarily “buy into” the solar array and own a piece of it. Those members who opt in to pay for the costs of the solar array will have their monthly bills reduced accordingly.
One of the advantages of the centralized, cooperatively owned solar array is that individual homeowners do not have to go through the expense and hassles of setting up solar panels on their own homes. This way, they can still feel good about doing the right thing – buying clean, green energy, reducing coal-plant pollution, and keeping their money within their community. SEE MORE
COAL POWER DRAINS MINNESOTA CASH
This latter factor is important to remember – when Roseau Electric customers here in northern Minnesota favor a coal-dominated energy system --they are sending their money out of Minnesota and into the hands of dirty, polluting coal plants in other states.
Yet those same plants are sending their pollution back into Minnesota, causing a host of environmental problems, not the least of which is acid rain and ever-growing levels of mercury in the fish of our lakes.
That’s another important point to remember: Rural cooperatives who like to burn cheap coal generally do a poor job of educating their members on the hidden costs of coal – and this comes in the form of tax dollars for massive government subsidies, costs to clean up pollution, and the enormous burden of health care bills brought on by the toxic effects of coal-burning pollution on the human body.
Many top-rate studies – such as this one by Harvard Medical School -- have concluded:
"We estimate that the life cycle impacts of coal and the waste stream generated are costing the U.S. public a third to over one half a trillion dollars annually. Accounting for the damages conservatively doubles to triples the price of electricity from coal per kWh generated, making wind, solar, and other forms of non-fossil fuel power generation, along with investments in efficiency and electricity conservation methods, economically competitive." (Read the full report here: HARVARD COAL STUDY)
Finally, it should be noted that Roseau Electric Cooperative’s latest diatribe against solar energy has much to do with a new proposal introduced into the Minnesota Legislature this year which called for Minnesota to collectively get 10% of its energy from solar by year 2030. (See my story here: NEW SOLAR PUSH).
The Roseau Cooperative sees this as yet another rash, costly and reckless mandate, which Joel Johnson called “bad policy” when he appeared before the House Energy Committee last month – yet this new solar bill has wide-range support among citizens, lawmakers and a variety of private policy groups. (Although it should noted that even the above mentioned somewhat solar-friendly Wright-Hennepin Cooperative opposes this measure.)
As you can see, this is a complex story and the true depth and scope of all that is involved in formulating energy policy have only been touched upon here. Net metering is only a single part of the equation, but an important one.
How net metering fares as part of Minnesota policy is extremely important to the future of our state. The hope of creating a clean, pollution-free environment for the future of ourselves and our children depend not only net metering, but making it even more robust.
OTHER SIMILAR, RECENT STORIES BY THIS AUTHOR:
Comments