A state legislator was quoted as saying that he might vote against the solar net-metering bill because he found it “confusing. I couldn’t understand it.” Allow me.

Net metering for solar-energy producers is simple: If the sun-produced electricity is more than you need on some fine summer day, you sell the leftover power to the power company. It – Central Maine Power or whoever – gives you a credit that you use on some cloudy day, when you’re using more power than you produce.

The law that regulates net metering will expire this year and needs updating. So all the affected parties – solar-power producers, people who would like to be solar producers, solar industry workers, their town and state representatives and, importantly, the power-delivery companies (like CMP) – got together to work on a bill to settle the issue.

They did good work. None of the parties got all that they wanted, but they agreed to a compromise, L.D. 1649, which is before the Legislature now.

The solar-panel installers get to keep working, and the amount of solar electricity produced increases. CMP’s bottom line is protected, because it doesn’t have to import power from out of state on those peak energy-use days, in summer, when it’s most expensive to do so.

Maine has no coal or oil; when we use power produced in a coal- or oil-fired plant, we’re sending money out of Maine. Solar is one way to keep that money at home. This is 21st-century economic development.

Only a fool or a knave would oppose L.D. 1649. Which brings us to Gov. LePage.

Does he, like the anonymous legislator, simply not understand the bill? Or have the oil and coal companies, which just killed the solar business in Nevada through well-placed political “contributions,” gotten to him, too?

Daniel F. Kane

South Portland

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