Spotlight: Going Solar in Waynesville

On Monday February the 21st, one of our own, Edward Wright, Owner at Rhino Renewables sat down with the Town of Waynesville’s solar advocates and town leaders. In an article written by Becky Johnson from The Mountaineer, “Going solar: Waynesville seeks compromise on solar panel incentives,” she witnessed a discussion on the way forward for the town’s solar system incentives.

With new technology and solar becoming more accessible to homeowners, more discussions have arisen on incentives for homeowners who choose to go solar.

You get to invest in what you believe in, which is clean energy. It’s the future and it’s coming. We aren’t going to rely on fossil fuels forever because they aren’t going to be there.

Edward Wright in The Mountaineer

Debates on the return of investments and how solar customers are only receiving the wholesale rate for surplus power were made during Monday’s meeting.

Net metering, a device that credits the homeowner dollar-for-dollar for selling their surplus electricity to the grid, was added to the discussion.

Net metering is a pretty elegant solution. It’s credits for credits

Edward Wright in The Mountaineer

This comes at a cost, as covered by Johnson in the Mountaineer article. If net metering was solely the solution to reimbursing the solar homeowner, then the Town of Waynesville would therefore need to find funds to support the infrastructure and the labor involved with an electrical grid.

Compromises needed to be made that benefitted both sides of the argument. According to the Mountaineer article, they came up with a solution that would satisfy everyone: net metering with a monthly flat fee. The monthly surcharge would supplement some of the losses seen with the net metering and solar homeowners will be able to see their excess power credited back to them.

Read more about Monday’s meeting on The Mountaineer.