Senate Hearing Today on Two Renewable Energy Bills

The Senate Energy & Transit Committee will meet today at 2:30 to discuss two energy bills.

Senate Bill 266 would give the DNREC secretary greater leeway over the Green Energy Fund to keep it viable. The secretary could suspend technology demonstration and R&D grants in order to better direct funds to end users. While supporting R&D and demonstration projects is an appropriate use of government funds, we already have the technology. It makes more sense for Green Energy Fund to focus on promoting end use of technologies that have already been proven.

Senate Bill 267 would strengthen Delaware's net metering law that governs how much renewable energy utility customers can sell back to the grid. The bill would allow homes and businesses to sell back 120 percent of expected aggregate consumption to the grid, and make it possible for customers to aggregate several meters for one location (such as a farm or business campus). For instance, if a farm has several meters for buildings on one site, it could use the aggregate demand from all of those meters to determine how much power could be sold back to the grid through one meter. Both provisions would make it possible for customers to finance larger renewable energy installations.

A third provision would allow groups of customers, such as a homeowners association to band together to finance and build community owned renewable energy projects on site or off site. For instance, homeowners association could organize to finance and build a solar installation several miles away. It would be a powerful tool to promote medium size renewable energy installations.