Net Metering - South Carolina

It is truly amazing that the South Carolina elected officials and The South Carolina Public Service Authority ( aka - Santee Cooper ) are holding the people, businesses, city, county, and school districts hostages by not allowing “True Net Metering”. To reinforce their power, Santee Cooper is spending millions of dollars in an advertising campaign to convince the public that they are doing everything possible to promote renewable energy, even bribing all of their customers with 1.6 million free light bulbs at a cost of $2.7 million dollars. It is apparent that Santee Cooper will do anything to prevent “True Net Metering” for South Carolina.

Most recent net metering map for the US (May 2008)

August 27, 2008

From DOE/ EERE, via IREC (original image found here) - the most recent map of states in the US that have net metering policies. South Carolina is one of the blank spots with no such policy.

Not all of them are good net metering policies, of course. Check out this report - Freeing the Grid: 2007 Edition (report prepared by the Network for New Energy Choices, IREC, et al) (.pdf).

There is a big difference between true net metering (such as the policy that just passed in Colorado this year) and other forms of net metering. The new Colorado law revised an old one from 2005.

Some of the things that make a difference - the size of the installation allowed (is it big enough for farm and business needs? or does it just serve small residential customers?), additional requirements by utilities such as external disconnect switches to be installed at customer expense, the rate of reimbursement to the customer-generator, etc.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org

As we read in GoGreenSolar.com they call Santee Cooper just plain and simple Greenwashing and defined it as the following,

“the unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government, a politician or even a non-government organization to create a pro-environmental image, sell a product or a policy, or to try and rehabilitate their standing with the public and decision makers after being embroiled in controversy.”

Now is the time for everyone to ask South Carolina elected officials “Why is our state owned utility ( Santee-Cooper ) doing this?”

South Carolina is one of the six states that is not allowing true net metering. We all know that we are going through an energy crises and our energy costs will only get more expensive.

When you think about the technology that is available today that could make any home a zero-energy-home, everyone should be asking the question “Why doesn’t South Carolina allow true net metering?”.

It is very hard for me to understand why South Carolina Republicans and Democrats alike are not supporting “true net metering”. After all, true net metering is not a government hand out, no need for a tax increase, just empowerment of the individual to make his own power.

Why are we all waiting for state owned utility, Santee Cooper, and our politicians to build expensive coal fired plants to control our energy when solar and wind are personal resources?

The US Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Homes research initiative is bringing a new concept to homebuilders across the United States. That is everywhere but South Carolina!

It’s not rocket science, we can develop and harness this ourselves for business, home, or school. Why wait and plan for South Carolina to enslave us with higher energy costs, we must demand that our state government give us the right to pay for and control our own energy for a change.

Someone should remind Santee Cooper that Einstein’s definition of insanity was “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”