One of the last remaining items of business at the State House this summer is what — if anything — the State Legislature is going to do about the soaring electricity costs driven by a 2019 law that handed massive subsidies to solar developers.
Republicans and some Democrats agree that lawmakers made an expensive mistake in 2019 when they expanded Maine’s community solar program to include facilities up to 5MWs.
The cost of that expansion was paid for by ratepayers in the form of higher electricity bills collected through Net Energy Billing (NEB).
Maine’s NEB program already allowed small rooftop solar programs to sell power into the grid; however, the 2019 shift pushed NEB from rooftop panels to solar farms the size of 15-20 football fields.
The rate hikes paying for this buildout are set to hit power bills in July, and the Office of the Public Advocate has estimated total annual costs of the solar subsidies could reach $220 million by 2025.
Although Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant, Maine’s top electric utilities, collect those rate increases and get blamed for price increases, they’re merely the bill collector. The money from higher electricity rates flows almost entirely to developers, while a small share is used to lower bills for solar “subscribers.”
There is a bipartisan consensus that lawmakers made mistakes in writing the bill.
What were those mistakes?
It depends on who you ask.
Some Republicans who backed the original bill claim the entire program was a mistake, that lawmakers were hoodwinked by lobbyists from the solar industry.
Some Democratic lawmakers say the mistake was in tying the price of solar-generated electricity to the standard offer rate, which is driven primarily by the cost of natural gas.
[RELATED: Maine Solar Power Project Linked to Chinese Forced Labor…]
That linkage effectively means that when the price of natural gas goes up, so does the cost of solar subsidies, even though the costs of solar generation remain the same.
Lobbyists for the solar industry have fiercely defended the current arrangement.
Early on in the legislative session, it appeared that they might successfully kill off any attempts to change NEB.
However, as the OPA and various media outlets continued to explain the complicated reasons behind Maine’s increasing electricity rates, the solar industry developed a fallback position.
Rather than opposing all reforms, they tried to float very modest reforms that would maintain most of their windfall profits.
Millions of dollars are at stake.
The OPA estimates that 85 percent of rate increases attributable to NEB are flowing to the solar firms — most of whom are located outside of Maine.
An investigation by the Maine Wire found that just 12 percent of the companies registered for the community solar program with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are based in Maine.
Because of NEB, Maine’s utilities are required to buy energy generated at massive solar farms at an above market rate as high as 25 cents per kWh when
Rep. Steve Foster (R-Dexter), the House Republican lead of the Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee, has been leading the charge to eliminate NEB or seriously rein it in.
[RELATED: GOP Wants Limits on “Net Energy Billing” to Rein in Electricity Rates…]
On Friday, Foster issued a joint press release with Sen. Nicole Grohoski (D-Hancock) calling on consumers to lobby lawmakers in favor of a bipartisan compromise that would blunt some of the ratepayer pain this summer.
“Today, we are asking that Maine consumers immediately reach out to tell their senators that electricity bills are too high and that they need to vote for LD 1347 to reduce those bills,” said Sen. Grohoski.
“The amended LD 1347 is the only proposal before the Legislature that is both bipartisan and offers real cost savings from the expected $220 million-dollar annual cost of NEB,” Grohoski said.
“Net energy billing costs are real and will result in higher electric bills starting this July. We can and must accelerate our transition to local, clean energy, but net energy billing is an unnecessarily expensive way to do this and needs to be reformed,” she said.
Grohoski last week gave an impassioned plea on the Senate floor to fix the problems with NEB.
Rep. Sophia Warren (D-Scarborough), a staunch supporter of renewable energy projects, also joined the effort.
During floor debates this week, she repeatedly said the current NEB arrangement was “unjust” as it raised rates on low-income Mainers to generate windfall profits for solar developers.
Her amendment to Foster’s original bill has produced what appears to be the likeliest candidate to get NEB reform passed before the legislature adjourns.
“This holiday weekend, most legislators will be in their districts and accessible to the public,” said Foster. “This is a crucial time for Mainers to stand up for themselves against high energy costs.”
“The Maine Senate can join the House in adopting LD 1347 to bring these excessive costs down,” he said.
“What sets the amendment apart from the other NEB legislation still under consideration is that ratepayer advocates like the Maine Public Advocate, American Association of Retired Persons, and small and large business groups like the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the Industrial Energy Consumer Group, all support the amendment to LD 1347,” Foster said.
“The only organized group opposing this amended bill is the solar lobby, representing the developers, many of whom are financed by large Wall Street firms like Black Rock and others,” he said.
In April, when LD 1347 had its public hearing, the Governor’s Energy Office spoke against the bill and in support of NEB. However, the governor has yet to take a position on the newly amended version.
Not surprisingly, Maine legislators are too easily duped/seduced by lobbyists/scammers.
It is simply insane to subsidize technology that CANNOT cost-effectively produce adequate, 24/7 reliable power while simultaneously blocking the importation of unlimited cheap hydropower from Canada !
Maine legislators got dupped by lobbyists from Boston…or were they paid off???
And as usual as long as money works its way toward Mills she is all for it.