Solar pushback: how power companies try to make people pay for going green
Floodlight's latest collaboration with Haines Eason in Kansas walks readers through how power companies are threatened by customers generating their own power and are trying to get regulators to let them charge rooftop solar users more.
Eason is authoring a related piece for The New Territory, a"print magazine of Land, People and Possibilities in the Great Plains and Ozarks."Typically, we publish the same stories as our partners, but in this instance, Eason is relying on the same reporting for two different stories written in different styles for different audiences.
From the story:
Kansas has about as much solar potential as Florida but lags far behind the state, powering only about 12,000 homes – or less than 2% of what is covered in Florida, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. That could be related to an ongoing debate in the states that is pitting utilities companies against solar energy.
The Kansas utility Evergy has vastly expanded wind power in the state, but it is advocating for policies that would make customers less likely to install rooftop solar panels. That’s because if customers generate their own power, they won’t need to buy as much from Evergy.
The fight has played out in state after state, from Arizona to California to Massachusetts – as power companies are threatened by the transition.