Robert Miller: State’s proposed energy strategy leaves solar cold

If you own a home in Connecticut, you know it costs a lot for light and heat. We have the highest energy costs in the United States.

This is one of the reasons, among many, that people install solar panels on their roof — to use the sun to make cheaper electricity.

But solar companies and advocates of renewable energy now look at the state’s new energy plan and shudder. For them, sections of the plan would pull the proverbial plug on their work.

“It would pretty much dismantle our business,” said Ray Furse, one of the partners running Litchfield Hills Solar in West Cornwall.

“I think it would cut us off at our knees,” said Stephan Hartmann, a manager at Ross Solar in Danbury.

“It’s one of the worst plans I’ve seen in 43 years,” said energy consultant Joel Gordes, a longtime advocate of solar power in the state.

The plan in question is the 2018 Comprehensive Energy Strategy, written by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. It’s a major revision of the state’s first comprehensive energy plan, written in 2012.

DEEP completed the plan in February and submitted it to the General Assembly for final approval. The complete plan is at www.ct.gov/deep/lib/deep/energy/ces/2018_comprehensive_energy_strategy.pdf

Two area legislators — state Reps. David Arconti, D-Danbury, and J.P. Sredzinski, R-Newtown — who sit on the General Assembly’s Energy Committee, said they’re not happy with the legislation as it now stands.

“As written, I probably would not support it,” Arconti said. “Solar companies think it would be a death knell for them.”

“I think it would be a disservice to the people of Connecticut,” Sredzinski said.

In response, DEEP spokesman Chris Collibee said the department “is meeting with stakeholders and processing their feedback on this important bill. We are seeking the right balance to ensure that households and businesses can deploy distributed renewable energy cost-effectively and sustainably.”

The goal of the plan, stated simply is “to create a cheaper, cleaner, more reliable energy future for Connecticut’s residents and businesses.”

It does include sections that promote the use of renewable energy in the state. The 2012 plan envisions the state’s energy portfolio to include 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. The proposed plan would increase that to 40 percent by 2030.

But, the solar industry says, there are provisions that would cut them out of that growth.

Here is how things work when you install solar panels on the roof of your home: On sunny days, those panels produce your electricity. At night, on cloudy days, or with a snow-covered roof, you have to buy your power from your local utility.

But on bright, sunbaked days, your panels may produce more power than you can use. Under the current system, the utility must buy that power from you at the retail rates — what’s called net metering.

The new plan would grandfather existing systems into net metering. They’d continue to operate as they do now.

But any new solar projects would require homeowners to have two meters — one for the power they produce and one for the power they buy from the utility. The state would set a new, lower rate for the power homes produce.

The plan would also require the owners of solar systems to sell all the power they produce to the utility, then buy it back at the higher retail rate.

Michael Trahan, executive director of CT Home Solar, which represents solar companies in the state, calls the proposed system “buy-all, sell-all.” He strenuously objects to it.

“It’s a dramatic shift in state policy,” he said.

The people who install solar panels say that, if enacted, this would curtail growth in their business by making home solar power more expensive.

“It’s as if you have a garden and grow your own tomatoes,” Hartmann of Ross Solar in Danbury said. “With this proposal, it’s like saying you have to sell all the tomatoes you grow to Stop & Shop, then buy them back at a higher price.”

Hartmann said there’s another issue involved: batteries.

Because electricity is fluid, it has to be used or added to the state power grid. You can’t save it.

But the solar industry is on the verge of breakthroughs in storage batteries, Hartmann said. These batteries would allow homeowners to save the surplus energy produced during the day and use it when the sun sets.

The proposed plan, he said, stymies innovation for the 20 years mandated in the legislation, rather than letting the business evolve on its own.

“It’s as if you set limits on smart phones before you knew what they could do,” Hartmann said.