What war … you may say … everywhere you go there is more solar installations, bright orange and yellow lawn signs announcing new ones to come. And besides, didn’t we stop H4185? Yes, but there was a catch in the compromise bill S2214 that increased the Net Metering Cap a meager 1% private and 2% public, it called for a new Solar Task Force comprised of 17 members, 16 of which were supporters of H4185, and only 1 being an actual solar stakeholder (SEBANE). This Solar Task Force has met for the first time on Nov. 13th in Boston. Both John Ward and Claire Chang, MASOA members attended (read Claire’s report – click here). The bottom line is that there is likely going to be little support for future solar growth with utilities and so-called ratepayer [corporate fossil fuel] advocates looking to crush solar and renewables by incrementally removing incentives such as net metering and SRECs with the reasoning that renewables should be cost competitive with fossil fuels (who currently get four times more federal subsidies click here) in the best interest of the ratepayer when planning the state’s energy solutions. It will be up to grassroots groups and organizations, such as MASOA, to be on the side of protecting our environment and our children’s future by educating our legislators that we must invest in renewables today and convince our utilities to redraft their business models to become earth sustainable rather than just in the best financial interest of stockholders.
How can you help solar to continue to grow in Massachusetts? Join MASOA … it is simple, just click here, or the membership button above. You can be a solar owner, whether on your property, or part of a community solar farm, or you simply want clean solar energy to replace the 636,000 megawatts of fossil and nuclear fuel generation scheduled to be retired in the next ten years.