My Turn: Memo to policymakers: Let solar compete
Published: 2/2/2021 6:30:08 AM
I was recently called up before a New Hampshire town zoning board to seek a variance for a solar project my company installed for a local family farm. Apparently someone in town had driven by while we were constructing the 140-panel array and complained to town officials. Although we had been granted the required zoning permits many months ago, we were told to seek a variance on the grounds that solar panels in a field might now be considered a “building,” with all the attending requirements.
Thousands of dollars in legal fees and construction delays later, we were grateful to receive a unanimous vote of approval from the zoning board. A few weeks later, after spending thousands more dollars in grid upgrades required by the utility, the project was complete – at a loss.
Environmental News For The Week Ending 16January 2019
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at
GEI (but can be posted at other times).
Please share this article - Go to very top of page, right hand side, for social media buttons.
Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
Summary:
New US Covid infections for the week ending January 16th were 8.5% below those of the week ending January 9th, so it appears that the incidence of new cases mat have peaked and is turning down, at least for the time being. One caveat to that, though, is that we don t know how many of the prior week s cases were from reports that had been delayed over the holidays. For a check on that, we can compare new cases from the week ending January 16th to those from the week ending December 19th, two weeks which sh
The report's deadline is April 1, which will give the governor and lawmakers just a few months to decide whether to subsidize Exelon's power plants for a second time.
Subscribe
Last year, at the conclusion of a public talk I gave in Dover about my work, a member of the audience raised her hand and asked me the secret of my success as Consumer Advocate.
Dodging the question of just how successful I ve truly been as the statutory representative of New Hampshire s residential utility ratepayers, I had a ready answer: Avoid all discussion of net metering.
Subscribe
Everyone laughed.
Conceptually, net metering is rather ingenious and, perhaps, even cute. Put some solar panels on your roof, wire them up so they re connected to your house s electric system and see if, at times when you re producing more power than you re using, the meter spins backwards.
+1
James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University. Photo by WVU +1
Tim Cronin, fellow at the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University. Photo by WVU
MORGANTOWN â A new report issued by the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at the West Virginia University College of Law, says the switch to renewable energy would be cost-effective and can be done in a way that creates thousands of jobs as well as save consumers money.
The âWest Virginiaâs Energy Futureâ report spells out how West Virginia can dramatically increase renewable energy production over the next 15 years, and generate more than 70% of the stateâs electricity from wind and solar by 2035. Currently, less than 5% of the stateâs electricity comes from those sources.