Tell PSC we want choice

Parkersburg News & Sentinel – Nov 4, 2018

To quote the organization Solar United Neighbors of West Virginia, “West Virginia’s monopoly electric utilities — Appalachian Power, Wheeling Power, Mon Power, and Potomac Edison — want to drastically reduce the rate at which net-metered solar owners receive credit for the energy their solar panels produce. If the state’s Public Service Commission accepts the utilities’ proposal, this would penalize existing solar owners who went solar expecting to receive full retail-rate credit, and would strongly discourage additional West Virginians from investing in solar.”

Solar United Neighbors continues, “The utilities’ proposal comes at a time when the Public Service Commission is considering changes to the state’s net metering regulation. The PSC proposed relatively minor changes, but the utilities have taken this opportunity to argue for gutting our net metering rules, making it far more expensive for West Virginians to go solar.”

We must let the Public Service Commission know that this is unacceptable. No matter your political ideology or party affiliation, we can all agree that penalizing West Virginians for trying to generate their own energy and feed part of what’s generated back into the grid is just mindless greed on the part of existing electric utilities.

Public comments to the PSC regarding this reduction of net metering rates are due by Nov. 8. To protect reasonable net metering rates, go to www.solarunitedneighbors.org/westvirginia/ and click on “contact the public service commission” on the main page by or before Nov. 8. Or you can go to Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action’s facebook group page and click into the Solar United Neighbors comments page for the PSC at the top of MOVCA’s page under “announcements.”

Let’s take a stand today for renewable energy independence in West Virginia. Montani Semper Liberi.

Eric Engle

Parkersburg