A Kansas House energy committee last week rejected a bill that would have allowed “net metering,†in which individual homeowners who install wind turbines and solar panels receive credits for generating more electricity than they use.
Some 44 states have some form of net metering, and among wind power utilities, it’s widely considered a sign that a state is serious about promoting wind energy. Isn’t that what Kansas is supposed to be doing? Promoting wind? Guess Kansas lawmakers still haven’t gotten the memo.
11 Comments
Wind power…there’s an idea! Bring it on. Do you ever wonder why Westar needs a commercial around here? Do they have any competition to have a need for one?
My point is, “what is the point of buying ads if you are the only one to offer the service?
What else would you expect from Republicans? The power companies buy their drinks and whores.
What are they afraid of? After all, net metering will have no effect - we already ‘know’ that wind and solar do not work!
/sarcasm off
This net metering death is just nuts. Hypocrisy at its finest.
That’s why I always say, until Kansas voters throw out da bums in the state legislature, we’re gonna continue to limp from all those self inflicted bullet holes.
This ONLY helps the utilities. Their reasoning is just lame.
Obviously none of the respondents here understand net metering. Net metering allows a qualified facility to generate electric power and “sell” it back to the utility at a retail rate. Electric power is purchased at wholesale rates not retail, so in essence the customer that is generating and selling power to the utility is doing so at the expense of all the remaining customers who pay to operate the utility. Net metering allows a generator to use the facilities of the utility for free in transmitting their excess power over the utility’s power lines. I can not understand how net metering will benefit Kansas consumers, other than those that can afford to install generation.
And the monopoly on energy continues. I suppose net metering was rejected by those politicians who constantly advocate for the “free market”.
Cletas Rains,
“I can not understand how net metering will benefit Kansas consumers, other than those that can afford to install generation.”
It helps reduce the need for the utility to build expensive new power plants, which would increase the rates of all consumers.
“Obviously none of the respondents here understand net metering.”
Given the respondents so far, I truly doubt that.
“Net metering allows a qualified facility to generate electric power and ’sell’ it back to the utility at a retail rate. Electric power is purchased at wholesale rates not retail, so in essence the customer that is generating and selling power to the utility is doing so at the expense of all the remaining customers who pay to operate the utility. ”
The customer is being discounted at the rate they buy electricity for the excess power that they generate when their system (wind or solar) is operating at peak efficiency. Thus, your claim is quite misleading. The only cost the utility is suffering is that they have to credit the customer for power that they have fed back into the system at the same price that they charge the customer (the utility’s loss is the same as it would be if the customer cut back on his/her use by the same amount as the excess power generated back into the system). But, the customer is still generally a paying customer, because the excess power generation does not equal the amount of per that they consume from the utility. Especially because, in most net metering systems, if the customer ends up generating more power than they consume for a billing period (as defined by a net metering agreement), then that excess power is purchased from the customer at a wholesale rate (that is, the same rate the utility pays other providers). Thus, if the utility actually has to PAY the customer, it is at wholesale rates, but as long as the customer is still using more power than they generate over a billing period, they get discounted at the cost they are paying. That’s a fair system.
http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/netmetfin_fs.PDF
http://www.sierrasolar.com/articles.php?article_id=16
The only person here who does not understand net metering is Cletas Rains!
It’s not like when the little phone companies were buying packages and springing up every where and re-selling att&t’s services.
Maybe their afraid they wouldn’t even have the weak justification they now have to build the Holcomb plant.
The problem with wind and solar and all the other “alternative” power sources is the fact that the power company has to still have enough genrating capacity on line to meet the demand when the wind stops blowing and cloudy days happen. And that capacity is what cost money. If this issue is to be solved we have to deal with the DEMAND side- especially peak demand which is where lots of your bill comes from. Right now the power company has to have the ability to meet the highest demand on the hottest day of the year. New technologies such as radio shut offs for air conditioners should be mandated so the power company can “even out” the peak and therfore have less generating capacity in reserve.