Solar association speaks out against pending state legislation
The Solar Energy Business Association of New England (SEBANE) has come out against certain provisions of pending state legislation addressing net metering and solar.
Those provisions “do not represent the best interests of Massachusetts consumers, nor are they conducive to the continued growth and success of the state’s solar industry,” said Tom Thompson, SEBANE president, in a statement Thursday.
Hudson-based SEBANE, which has represented the majority of solar companies in Massachusetts since 2001, supports the draft legislation’s elimination of the net metering cap. However, they felt that other changes resulting from the bill would significantly disrupt the operations of locally-owned and operated solar businesses, many of which have been in the state for decades.
Also, the proposed bill legislates details of the solar market in complex ways that reverse progress made under the Green Communities Act, the association said.
One of the issues SEBANE said needed to be addressed is the “minimum bill” approach, which it said “presumes a cost to ratepayers from distributed generation such as solar, but does not take into account substantial benefits from solar to ratepayers, which far outweigh any cost.”
Additionally, SEBANE said the changes to virtual metering that would penalize solar customers who virtually net meter some of their production as they would receive significantly lower compensation from the utilities than they do today.
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