“IT TURNS OUT THERE’S A DOWNSIDE TO MAINE’S SOLAR POWER BOOM — A POTENTIAL $160 MILLION ANNUAL HIT FOR ELECTRICITY CONSUMERS HERE,” reported Maine Public last week.

Maine has the 10th-highest electricity costs in the country. Last year, in an effort to encourage more solar power, the Legislature passed—and Governor Janet Mills signed and celebrated—laws that are raising electricity rates even higher.

In its 2019 testimony on one of the bills—LD 91, the Public Utilities Commission warned that costs would be shifted from people who own solar panels onto all ratepayers if “net metering” was re-implemented, as LD 91 would do.

What is net metering? Net metering subsidizes the cost of homeowners’ and small community solar farms’ solar panels with bill credits.

The PUC explained in its LD 91 testimony: “. . . the utility makes up the revenue shortfall from other customers. This effect is often referred to as a cost shift in that costs to serve NEB [Net Energy Billing] customers [solar panel owners] are shifted to, or recovered from, other customers.”

It seems no one in the Legislature or the Mills Administration bothered to figure out how much this “cost shift” would be—especially when combined with the other solar incentives they passed and Governor Mills signed into law in the spring of 2019.

The PUC has now figured out the costs: $161 million for all ratepayers for the projects in the pipeline as of Sept. 30. Here’s the PUC’s projected AVERAGE ANNUAL INCREASE PER CUSTOMER:

CMP

– Residential: $89 per year

– Commercial: $16,535 per year

– Industrial: $82,677 per year

Versant

– Residential: $139 per year

– Commercial: $25,795 per year

– Industrial: $128,976 per year

BUT THESE COSTS CAN RISE EVEN HIGHER! The PUC warns:

“If the majority of projects included in the NEB reports and only a portion of the additional projects in the interconnection queues become operational and participate in NEB, the ratepayer impacts may be well in excess of the amounts specified above. . . . There may also be additional areas of costs associated with the NEB programs. Significant expansion of the NEB program may introduce additional risk to electricity suppliers and could result in increases to standard offer supply rates.”

Rep. Seth Berry sponsored LD 91. He told the Energy News Network that the metering system in place at the time, called gross metering, was too expensive to the ratepayer. Gross metering limits the costs that can be shifted onto other ratepayers.

“’[Gross metering] is a failed experiment by the PUC. It’s turned out to be much more expensive and the savings are much less than even the opponents of rooftop solar had claimed,’ said Berry, the bill’s prime sponsor. . . Berry, a member of the Legislature’s Energy Utilities and Technology Committee, said the costs of the [gross metering] program have been about $2.5 million while the amount of savings is an estimated $300,000.”

Yes, the reason Rep. Berry cited just last year for repealing gross metering and returning to net metering was that it was too expensive to the ratepayer at a cost of $2.5 million.

When she signed the bill into law, Governor Janet Mills promised it would lead to lower electricity bills for Mainers: “By signing into law this bill, we are restoring net metering, resetting Maine’s solar policy, and charting the course for the growth of solar power to lower electricity bills and combat climate change.”

There may be some improvements that could have been made to the gross metering policy that was in place from 2017 until Rep. Berry and Governor Mills got rid of it, but $160 million is a lot more costly to Maine’s ratepayers than $2.5 million.

Maine People Before Politics is not opposed to solar power, but we are opposed to policies like net metering that raise the costs of electricity for our families and businesses. Maine should be looking for ways to lower energy costs, not increase them.

In their story, Maine Public characterized the rise in costs: “Call it a case of being careful what you wish for.”

No Mainer is wishing for even higher electricity rates.

We’ve posted the link to the PUC report in the comments below. The cost chart for residential and business customers is on page 10.