Will Maine change its net metering law?

Several pieces of proposed Maine legislation could affect the state's version of net metering. Here's a quick look at Maine's net energy billing policy, how it could change, and what that might mean for consumers.

Maine's electricity rules allow consumers with certain distributed generation facilities (like solar panels) to elect "net energy billing." Like other forms of net metering, the basic concept is that consumers can use their on-site generation to offset their purchases of electricity from the grid, both in real time, and by banking credits for power exported to the grid during periods of time when on-site generation exceeds the consumer's load.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission first adopted a net energy billing rule in the 1980s, allowing customers to net imports and exports within any month or other billing period, in recognition that consumers should not be required to install an extra meter to measure exports from small renewable power facilities and other distributed generation. In 1998, the Commission revised its rule to allow annualized netting as a means of encouraging the use of small-scale renewable technologies designed primarily to serve the customer’s own needs.

In 2017, the Commission revised its rule to reduce the benefits of net metering for future projects, both by reducing the credit for nettable energy, and by shifting the state to a "gross metering" paradigm. Under gross metering, which has been called "one of the strangest and most regressive policies for valuing residential solar in the United States," utilities collect charges even for power generated and consumed on-site in real time. While the Commission later granted an exemption from its gross metering policy for most medium and large customers after finding that the cost of installing an extra meter (estimated at over $3,000 per installation) wasn't justified, the revised rule remains on the books for now.

But further possible changes to net energy billing figure among the numerous energy issues implicated by the list of legislation proposed for the Maine State Legislature's 2019 session. Several bills that have been printed so far suggest that the Legislature will consider various bills that would eliminate gross metering (like LD 91, An Act to Eliminate Gross Metering and LD 143, An Act To Protect Electric Ratepayers from Gross Output Metering Costs), or would replace net energy billing with a market-based mechanism (like LD 41, An Act To Replace Net Energy Billing with a Market-based Mechanism), among other measures. Other bill titles suggest possible changes to the state's policy on shared ownership net metering, which allows multiple customers to offset their load with generation from a community solar project or other off-site facility.

The Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology will schedule public hearings on these bills. The Committee has scheduled public hearings on LD 41 and LD 91 for 1:00 p.m. on January 29, 2019.