WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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Solar energy advocates continued their criticism of Senate Bill 309 today. The bill takes aim at net metering, a process in which solar energy customers sell extra power back to the grid. The bill was approved by the Senate Utilities Committee on Thursday. This morning, the Indiana Distributed Energy Alliance issued a press release criticizing the bill and its author, State Senator Brandt Hershman. The Alliance says Hershman made false statements in his explanation of the bill’s effects. In its statement, the Energy Alliance encourages the Utilities Committee to reconvene so that Hershman’s statements can be corrected and the senators can vote again.
On Friday, we spoke with another opponent of SB 309, the executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, Jesse Kharbanda. He says the bill could harm the state in the long run: “Solar ends up putting a lot more benefit to the grid than it imposes on the grid. And to forcibly devalue solar in the way that SB309 would do would really discourage long-term investment in solar energy.”
Kharbanda went on to say that solar energy still has considerable room to expand in the state of Indiana: “The price of solar has gone down to such a degree over the last 5-10 years – more than 70% reduced on a per-unit-of-energy basis. It’s at just the opportunity where solar can be in grasp of middle-class Hoosiers, and working class Hoosiers, and low-income Hoosiers. So to radically change our public policy when it comes to solar energy would be such an unwise decision. Indiana has the potential to be a major player in solar energy, which is an industry that has over 200,000 jobs in the US; but SB309 would send Indiana in the wrong direction. It would worsen Indiana’s reputation in clean energy, building upon a very bad decision in 2014 where Indiana became the first state in the country to eliminate its energy savings program.”
According to the Tribune-Star newspaper, Indiana homeowners and businesses using solar panels can sell excess energy to the power grid for about 11 cents per kilowatt hour. The utility companies that manage the power grid can get that energy from other sources for as little as 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour. If passed, the effects of SB 309 would start in 2022. The bill has not yet been voted on by the full Senate.
