Maine Regulator Revises Rules to Restore Net Metering

The Maine Public Utilities Commission on July 31 implemented changes to reinstate net metering, following legislation enacted in April that eliminated the gross metering policy, which was adopted in 2017.

The 2017 rule required that the total or gross production of the net-metered facility be measured using a second meter as opposed to the prior approach in which a single meter was used to measure the net of the energy produced by the facility and energy used by the customers. Last December, Maine regulators exempted medium and large solar customers from gross metering, finding that the cost of additional metering equipment exceed the recovered revenue for these classes of customers, resulting in additional costs that are not offset by savings.

Maine also passed a law in June that establishes a new commercial and institutional net energy billing program, which provides a tariff for grid-exported energy based on the standard offer rate for the customer plus 75 percent of the transmission and distribution utility rate for the class that includes the smallest commercial customers.