Cal Net Metering Bill Stalls

[kristopher]

Cal Net Metering Bill Stalls

A spat over licensing and labor couldn’t be resolved by state lawmakers when they considered a bill to expand the net metering program for solar and wind energy system owners.

A fight over whether licensed electricians are required for installing larger solar energy systems prevented California lawmakers from passing a bill to expand their net metering program.

The bill, AB 560, would have raised the cap for the net metering program to 5 percent from the existing 2.5 percent.

The net metering program allows utility customers who own solar or wind energy systems to get credits on their electricity bills for feeding the power they don't use back to the grid. In the current program, each utility would stop accepting net metering customers when the overall generation capacity of existing net metering customers' systems reach 2.5 percent of the load.

An amendment pushed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers sparked some contention that couldn't be resolved before legislators ended their 2009 legislation session last Friday, said Adam Browning, executive director of Vote Solar Initiative, a San Francisco-based advocacy group.

"We were all pretty surprised and ...

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