Clean Energy: Policies to Gain Positive Growth in Energy Distribution
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Clean Energy: Policies to Gain Positive Growth in Energy Distribution

Energy CIO Insights | Wednesday, March 20, 2019

To enable solar growth, third-party financing can be beneficial, but there are hurdles in several states that halt development. South-eastern parts are usually sunny, but the challenging policies make it difficult for setup and create demand. The southern alliance for clean energy (SACE) expects the region to reach 15 GW by 2021 from 6GW. The question of costs and benefits from this utility remains naive.

Southern environmental law center shows that the policies limit the distributed solar growth and it is found that the policies are the primary reason for this. The trend that is widely followed is small solar owners are levied extra fees and not compensated for the solar’s full value; these factors directly impact the solar value proposition. The need for clean energy is undeniably high, and southern states are moving forward in large scale solar, but penetrations from a rooftop are still scarce. The policies must encourage the consumers and make them want solar, but some policies make it hard for the consumers and halt the market growth. Florida’s PSC unanimously bypassed third party selling electricity prohibition. The state now allows customers to lease their residential arrays for 2MW without any maintenance and upfront costs. The hurricanes of 2017 and 2018 have changed the mindset of the people to access solar and solar plus storage for convenience.

South-eastern states collect a huge amount of fixed charges, provision of low compensation rate, and ban against lease work that supports solar development. The first transitional shift is happening, and some kind of third-party solar ownership is now available in parts of Georgia and Carolinas. Utilities are demanding regulators an approval of billion-dollar investments to the modernization of grid that the customers can pay for. The newly formed system will be better and an ideal way to distribute clean energy. Duke Energy is the widely spoken energy producer. Dukes refrain from imposing solar specific charges and provide retail rate compensation; furthermore, they work with third-party lease providers. Dukes aim to find programs that comply with regulators and that work for the betterment of the utilities on a large scale. Integration of distributed energy will propel its growth and support the grid.

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