Dive Brief:
- Net metering has landed in the sights of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded conservative organization that tries to sway state lawmakers.
- ALEC has added net metering to a list of priorities, which have included trying to roll back renewable portfolio standards.
- Next month, an ALEC task force will discuss a draft resolution that calls for creating a fixed charge or other mechanism to recover grid costs from distributed generation systems.
Dive Insight:
Net metering has become a hot issue as utilities and state regulators around the country are considering changes to various cost recovery mechanisms related to distributed generation. Distributed generation eats into utility revenue in states where cost recovery is linked to how much power they sell.
ALEC typically drafts model legislation, which its lawmaker members then introduce into state legislatures, so this issue could spread. The draft resolution lacks specifics so it will be interesting to see the model legislation that emerges from the effort.