Indiana has a thing called the Indiana Energy Association. Sounds like a good thing, right? Not so much as it’s basically an alliance of Indiana’s big energy companies and that means they are sick and tired of new energy sources getting the same treatment that the old ones used to get.
Indiana Energy Association President Mark Maassel told a House committee that phasing out a state program that allows homeowners, schools and churches to harness the sun's bill-lowering potential would add a "level of certainty" to the industry.
Solar power provides only about 1 percent of the country's energy, and an even smaller percentage in Indiana. But the industry's recent rapid growth has traditional power utilities worried that it could eventually eat away at their business.
What Maassel and Republicans are pushing for in the state is to end something called “net metering,” which allows people with solar to get good compensation rates for feeding their extra energy back into the grid. To solve this solar subsidy, state senators Brandt Hershman and James Merrit have a new bill: Senate Bill 309. The bill’s job is to destroy the financial incentives for people interested in moving to solar power. The first thing the bill does is drastically drop the costs that solar can be sold back to the grid for; but that’s just the first thing being done here.
Perhaps most disturbing to solar advocates, the bill would institute a mandatory “buy-all, sell-all” provision to replace net metering that would essentially prohibit customers from using their own solar energy, forcing them to sell all of their energy back to the grid at low rates, only to buy it back at higher rates.
“It’s like saying, ‘Yeah, you can have your solar panels but you really don’t own them because you can’t decide what to do with the electricity you’re producing yourself,’” said Laura Arnold, president of the Indiana Distributed Energy Alliance, which represents solar installers, developers and homeowners. She said some see the measure as confiscating private property.
Republicans and people like Mark Massel are quick to say, hey, stop reading stuff, nerd.
Maassel said he is not aware of buy-all, sell-all laws in other states. “This is a uniquely Indiana approach, perhaps it will be something that works in other states,” he said.
If Mark Maassel, the President of Indiana Energy Association, is “not aware” of these kinds of laws in other states, then he is one of two things: a completely incompetent person at his job, or a complete liar. Who is to say which option is true? Maassel also says that while the bill is surprisingly pro-utility, his “association” doesn’t agree with every facet of the bill, his “association” will support it. What “facets” the utilities don’t agree with remains a mystery as they clearly wrote love this bill. But don’t take my word for it, here’s a threat from the utility companies:
Without the bill, Maassel said a spike in net metering could tax grid infrastructure while eating into profit margins. That would eventually lead to higher costs for customers, he said.
I’m going to guess that even if Indianans give the utility companies every last thing that they want, consumer prices will rise. I promise you. The bill comes up next week for a vote.