Senate Bill 7, legislation introduced by Senator Patricia Wiggins, stipulates that utility providers allow customers who produce their own solar power to roll over unused energy credits for up to two years. The Bill was voted on in the California Senate, and approved unanimously at 29-0. The Bill will now be passed to the Assembly for consideration.
Designed to encourage residential and commercial solar power generators to up their production, the new Bill amends the current law that does not financially reimburse customers whose systems produce more solar energy than the customers consume.
“This is kind of like having frequent flyer miles that you can never cash out or use,” Wiggins said. “And it sends the wrong message to consumers about the importance of energy conservation.”
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Net-energy metering currently means that customers can sell the power generated by their solar panels to the grid to offset the cost of their electricity bill. However, some have argued that in the case of a customer producing more power than they need, the utility company does not have to buy the electricity from them. Senate Bill 7 has the potential to change this.