Net Metering - South Carolina

South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee-Cooper) spokeswoman Laura Varn said the state owned utility will introduce a plan in the fall to buy power from its customers! BUT, Varn didn’t call it net metering! This plan drawn up by a panel of utility employees is call “Net Billing”… BUT please do not confuse it with “Net Metering”.

Bad News… We Are Getting Metering Without The Net!

The Plan
1. Customers pay for PV solar panels (no rebates) and pay for installation on their roofs.
2. The utility said it will buy power from customers on a trial basis this summer.
3. Decide in late September whether to offer the service permanently.

More good news… Santee Cooper has not decided precisely how much it will pay for the electricity, but the prices will be below retail rates. Instead of cash, participating customers would be credited on a sliding scale based on the utility’s system-wide demand at the time the extra electricity is fed onto the grid.

A Pig In A Poke?
Does Santee Cooper really think that homeowners will purchase photovoltaic solar panels, pay an installer to put them on their roof, sign some undisclosed contract with them not knowing:
1. Weather net billing will last over a year.
2. How much they will get paid.
3. What new barriers will be implemented at the next board meeting.

Does Santee Cooper think all of the people that want to use renewable energy are simple minded and will rush out and put PV solar panels on their roof for this plan? Where are they going to find homeowners to even try this plan?

Right now, if solar panels were free — handed out on street corners — you still would not see anyone installing them. Why? Because Santee Cooper has decided not to give the people of South Carolina the right regulatory infrastructure “Net Metering”. The state has no net metering standards, and without laws that govern the process of net metering and interconnection, Santee Cooper can and will implement barriers to developing a renewable energy solar industry in South Carolina. When you reads Santee Cooper’s net billing plan you can not draw any other conclusion other than that Santee Cooper is not going to allow net metering.

If solar is going to come to South Carolina we need to free the market with a good “Net Metering” standard like this IREC’s model rule and forget this Pig In A Poke plan!

Please, take a moment and send an e-mail to Governor Mark Sanford asking for his help!

He is South Carolina’s last hope!

Please include your name and address.

Consider this concept that the future could bring to South Carolina.
Let’s imagine that Santee Cooper allowed net metering and everyone started buying all-electric cars powering South Carolina’s commuters to work every day, petroleum free, and more people started putting solar-electric panels on their roofs.  If you spend $20-30 thousand for a 5,000 kW solar electric system at your home with net-metering (the utility has to zero out your electric bill if you produce as much or more than you use on a monthly or other time basis) it will eventually pay for itself through conventional electricity use (dishwashers, lights, refrigerators). However, if you are using an all-electric car to drive 30-50 miles per day, and every night you are fueling it by plugging it into your net-metered home, the pay-off comes even faster. In essence, with enough solar panels, your home becomes a private power plant for home use AND to power most transport needs. The panels don’t generate at night, but with net metering, it doesn’t matter. The juice the car uses plugged in at night is likely more than made up for by the net metered electricity pumped out during the day when commuters are at work and using little at home. If this vision really took hold it would be a “disruptive” technological advance in the extreme.

Why? Well, let’s say just 10% of homes went this route. And they did it to the extent that with net-metering their net electric use from the outside grid is zero. Where does that leave Santee Cooper? They have a vested interest in big power plants cranking out juice they get paid to dole out. If individual users reduced demand by 10% and their neighbors started seeing happy people paying no gasoline or electricity bills after their up-front solar investment (which technology is making cheaper every day and may be cut in half in two years), it just might catch on. However, de-centralized energy production does not make the utility empire expand. Big new power plants do. Who has more lobbyists at the state and federal level, Santee Cooper or individual homeowners trying to generate political favor for these concepts? Pretty easy answer to that question.

Do you get the picture of why Santee Cooper won’t allow net metering? These ideas are going to have to be fought for to become reality. A lot of home owners will have to make their voices heard, it won’t be easy. It is for sure that our world is rapidly changing, photovoltaic cells keep getting cheaper every day and more electric vehicles are coming onto the market every year. It sure doesn’t look like to far a stretch to see people driving to work on photons!

Santee Cooper may not like it because their demand may go down someday because of the masses taking to this concept, but no one should care, after all it is a state owned utility that should be concerned about supporting a better way of life to the people of South Carolina! I believe this is a look at the future when Santee Cooper allows net metering!!!

Don’t forget the best part, We’d be giving Hugo Chavez and the Iranian Mullahs the finger!!!