Across the country traditional electric utilities and rooftop solar installers are battling over a controversial incentive program for solar power owners called net metering. In many states, net metering allows utility customers who generate electricity, with solar panels for example, to sell the electricity to the grid at above-market rates. Utilities claim the unintended consequences of subsidizing the industry and allowing solar customers access to the power grid with little to no payment for grid services are now raising rates for non-solar customers. Advocates of the solar industry, on the other hand, claim that changes to the current system could have a devastating effect on solar expansion.
