It seems counter-intuitive and more than a little greedy to spend tens of thousands of dollars building green energy facilities so you can live off the grid and then fight the power company because they aren’t paying you for the extra power you give back to the grid.
Let’s have our cake and eat it, too. Most people invest in solar panels and wind energy to relieve themselves of the burden and insecurity of depending on the giant energy grid most of us depend upon. And it is a dependable grid. Not having power in America is not common and not tolerated for very long, even in the toughest circumstances.
Solar panels and windmills are now much more affordable then they were 20 years ago, so more of us are buying into self-sustaining energy. Just in case, most people who do live off the grid don’t cut the wires that connect us to the grid. And therein lies the rub.
Electrical meters run both ways. They measure how much energy we are using that is produced by the major energy companies. They also measure how much energy is being pumped back onto the grid by people producing green energy. So it has occurred to more than a few green energy producers that they should be paid for the energy they produce and don’t use.
The thing is, the energy they produce and don’t use is being distributed along an incredibly complex energy grid that allocates energy to homes and businesses all over the region. The people who invested in the green energy did not invest and do not invest in the development and maintenance of the grid. Yes, they pay a fee to be connected to the grid but that is their choice. They don’t have to sell the energy to the grid companies. They can cut the wires, cancel their accounts, and call it good.
To add salt to the wound, the energy companies are being asked by the serendipitous green energy producers to let them feed their green energy back to the grid and to be paid for doing so, which only makes sense if the green energy producers are willing to share a prorated share of the cost of the grid.
Green energy producers are apparently arguing they should be paid for green energy at prevailing rates but they should not have to maintain the grid that delivers the energy.
Sorry. If you want to produce green energy and run your place and maybe even your neighbors’ place, invest in a neighborhood grid, and make money producing energy by selling it like energy companies do — fine. But if you want an unexpected windfall from the already existing grid, which I pay full freight to use, then you have to pony up to maintain the grid. When the whole thing is prorated based on the actual costs of producing and distributing energy, you may find it costs you money to feed your “free” energy back to the grid.
Frank Carroll's website is blackhillsforestpros.com.
Write to him at frankcarrollpfm@gmail.com.
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