Net Metering: "Freeing the Grid"

The Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC) report "Freeing the Grid,” is the first report ever to rank and grade the effectiveness of 34 state programs designed to help homeowners and small businesses generate their own distributed energy and sell the excess back to the central transmission grid. These ‘net metering’ programs have been described as having the most potential of any policy tool at any level of government to “green” American electricity sources.

“Every homeowner and every small business is a potential source of reliable, renewable electricity for their community,” noted NNEC Executive Director Chris Cooper. “Smart utilities realize that we will have to tap all of these small sources to meet future demand.”

By comparing regulations with customer participation rates, NNEC was able to identify which states had the best programs and which states had the worst (and why).

New Jersey ranked first out of 34 states with net metering programs. Indiana and Arkansas were profiled as states with “worst practices”. Oklahoma ranked last. Read the report to find out what your state is doing to require net-metering.

The Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC) is committed to providing state and local governments with new ideas and useful information to promote clean, affordable power from local, renewable energy sources. NNEC is promoting creative ideas for financing community-based clean energy, helping to dispel misinformation about renewable energy in the media and advocating for critical utility policy reforms that will usher in a new world of energy choices for all Americans.

While I applaud NNEC's efforts to encourage distributed energy, it is only part of the answer to our energy problem. I do not agree that net metering has "the most potential of any policy tool at any level of government to “green” American electricity sources." Energy conservation through the encouragement of plug-in hybrid vehicles and energy efficient homes using high efficiency lighting (compact fluorescent lights) and higher insulation standards for new homes could have a greater effect in a shorter time period. Net metering and higher insulation standards need legislation to require them, which takes time and is why organizations like NNEC are needed. Government research money for batteries and purchase, not subsidies, of hybrid and plug-in vehicles is perhaps the best use of taxpayer dollars in the field of energy.