{"id":308,"date":"2016-01-19T17:24:05","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T22:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/?p=308"},"modified":"2016-01-21T10:43:30","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T15:43:30","slug":"will-maine-follow-nevadas-footsteps-and-reverse-course-on-net-metering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/will-maine-follow-nevadas-footsteps-and-reverse-course-on-net-metering\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Maine follow Nevada&#8217;s footsteps and reverse course on net metering?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maine reached an important solar power milestone recently, which is bringing concern that the state could end up following in Nevada&#8217;s footsteps regarding net metering.<\/p>\n<p>The milestone: There is now enough solar power &#8212; from combined commercial and residential sources &#8212; in Maine to to account for as much as one percent of the total load taken on by Central Maine Power on days with peak demand.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" width=\"550\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As Solar Power Hits Milestone, Maine Utility Wants to End &#39;Net Metering&#39; Policy <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9h99xU8oD5\">https:\/\/t.co\/9h99xU8oD5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MPBNnews (@MPBNnews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MPBNnews\/status\/688124576459431936\">January 15, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Now that the one percent threshold was reached in 2015, a <a href=\"http:\/\/news.mpbn.net\/post\/solar-power-hits-milestone-maine-utility-wants-end-net-metering-policy#stream\/0\" title=\"review of net metering policy in Maine is required by law\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>review of net metering policy in Maine is required by law<\/strong><\/a>. Because of this, some solar industry advocates worry about possible changes in solar energy policy that could be proposed that would ultimately be a detriment to residential solar customers in the state.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/net-metering-changes-makes-future-of-solar-in-nevada-unclear\/\" title=\"Net metering changes makes future of solar in Nevada unclear\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Tech_Forum_29_14231682575-150x150.jpg\" title=\"Net metering changes makes future of solar in Nevada unclear\" alt=\"Net metering changes makes future of solar in Nevada unclear\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/net-metering-changes-makes-future-of-solar-in-nevada-unclear\/\" title=\"Net metering changes makes future of solar in Nevada unclear\"><h4>Net metering changes makes future of solar in Nevada unclear<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/net-metering-changes-makes-future-of-solar-in-nevada-unclear\/\" title=\"Net metering changes makes future of solar in Nevada unclear\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Residential solar customers in Nevada <a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/net-metering-changes-makes-future-of-solar-in-nevada-unclear\/\" title=\"are currently fighting against net metering changes\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>are currently fighting against net metering changes<\/strong><\/a> that just took effect in their state. Updates to solar energy policy have shifted some costs away from utility companies directly to the customers.<\/p>\n<div id=\"inlink\"><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/nevada-solar-battle-heats-up-lawsuit-filed\/\" title=\"Nevada solar battle heats up, lawsuit filed\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/1024px-Giant_photovoltaic_array-150x150.jpg\" title=\"Nevada solar battle heats up, lawsuit filed\" alt=\"Nevada solar battle heats up, lawsuit filed\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/nevada-solar-battle-heats-up-lawsuit-filed\/\" title=\"Nevada solar battle heats up, lawsuit filed\"><h4>Nevada solar battle heats up, lawsuit filed<\/h4><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/nevada-solar-battle-heats-up-lawsuit-filed\/\" title=\"Nevada solar battle heats up, lawsuit filed\" class=\"hide375\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n<h2>Negative consequences, negative reaction<\/h2>\n<p>Those affected by the changes in Nevada <a href=\"http:\/\/solarenergylocal.com\/news\/nevada-solar-battle-heats-up-lawsuit-filed\/\" title=\"have not taken it lightly\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>have not taken it lightly<\/strong><\/a> and are currently fighting against the new regulations that make it more expensive to use solar power in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Is the same battle about to brew in Maine?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Utilities around the country are trying to kill rooftop solar and net metering because utilities are monopolies, and it\u2019s the only form of competition they\u2019ve faced in over 100 years.<br \/>&#8212; Chris Rauscher, policy director at Sun Run, as <a href=\"http:\/\/news.mpbn.net\/post\/solar-power-hits-milestone-maine-utility-wants-end-net-metering-policy#stream\/0\" title=\"told to Maine Public Broadcasting\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>told to Maine Public Broadcasting<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<span class=\"source-attribution\">Source &rarr; <a href=\"http:\/\/news.mpbn.net\/post\/solar-power-hits-milestone-maine-utility-wants-end-net-metering-policy#stream\/0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Maine Public Broadcasting<\/a><\/span><div class=\"pd-photo-att\">Photo Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Solar_Hot_Water_Panels.JPG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Photo<\/a> by Ross Hansen \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maine reached an important solar power milestone recently, which is bringing concern that the state could follow Nevada&#8217;s footsteps regarding net metering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41,54,40,6],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar","tag-electricity","tag-maine","tag-net-metering","tag-solar-power"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarenergylocal.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}