The elimination of gross metering in Maine marks a shift in legislative priorities for the state, which clean energy advocates say has struggled through eight years of inaction or rollbacks on renewable power policy.
LD 91 reestablishes retail rate net metering, which credits rooftop solar customers for the energy they supply to the grid, benefiting those customers and encouraging deployment of the resource.
“LD 91 is not a solution in and of itself. It is simply a re-correction in the near term,” Vaughan Woodruff, president of solar installer Insource Renewables, told Utility Dive. “We are a state that has significant economic development challenges and we have really missed the boat thus far on the economic development opportunity of solar.”
