Commentary: Solar bill could help Mainers facing some of nation’s highest utility rates
In a column for the Portland Press Herald, Anthony Buxton discusses a bill that would require people who generate power with rooftop solar to pay Central Maine Power the same way they would if the utility company delivered the power themselves.
An Excerpt
If the Legislature passed a law making you pay your grocer for the vegetables you grow in your own garden, you would be pretty unhappy. You’d have even greater unhappiness if you had to pay your oil dealer for burning firewood you cut off your own land.
This is precisely the crux of the current solar battle in Augusta – Central Maine Power’s and the Public Utilities Commission’s effort to require people who generate power with rooftop solar used in their own homes to pay CMP as though the power had been delivered over CMP’s grid.