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--></style><title>A reality check on
net-metering</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Verdana">Grist Jun 9, 2016</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana Bold">Solar panels don't raise regular
utility rates - and might even lower them</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">By Heather Smith</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Excerpt</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana"><br>
In the early days of solar, there was some concern - nay, terror - of
how it could destroy utilities and make power more
expensive for all the plebes sans solar panels. A confession:
Even Grist partook in such fearmongering:</font><font
face="Arial"><br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could
lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model,
which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the
ground.</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">But we took it
back! </font></div>
<div><font
face="Verdana"><<<u
>http://grist.org/climate-energy/rooftop-solar-is-j</u
>ust-the-beginning-utilities-must-innovate-or-go-extinct/>></font
></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">Even if utility</font><font
face="Verdana Bold Italic"> models</font><font face="Verdana"> crashed
and burned, their customers - and the utilities themselves, if they
were smart enough to adapt - would be just fine. That less
apocalyptic, much chiller view of the end of utilities as we know them
was recently confirmed by a new report from the Brookings
Institution.</font></div>
<div><font
face="Verdana"><<<u
>http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2016/05/23-rooftop-</u
>solar-net-metering-muro-saha#>></font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana">So here's the good news: Residential solar
(specifically net metering, which enables solar installations to sell
surplus electricity back to the grid) has not destroyed any American
utilities. Nor has it created a dystopia of solar panel-having fat
cats who profit off the grid while ordinary ratepayers are forced to
assume more and more of the cost of maintaining it.</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>End excerpt</div>
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<div><font face="Verdana" color="#000000">"Just remember, this is
not your grandfather's atmosphere. Things are different now, and will
get even more-so in the coming years Š
"<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="-1"
color="#FFFF00"><u
>http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2015/12/02/the-coming-winter-pa<span
></span>rt-two-the-elephant-in-the-room/</u></font><br>
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