Customers of Green Mountain Power Corp. who have been thinking about installing solar panels on their roofs now have a powerful new reason to do so: the opportunity to sell their excess electricity to the utility.
The new solar incentive goes beyond the more traditional “net metering” programs in which customers who make their own power and don’t use it all can ship the excess back onto the grid, reducing their electric bill.
GMP spokeswoman Dorothy Schnure says the utility effectively would be paying a total of 19 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar-generated power. Net metering customers now get 13 cents for each kilowatt-hour they send onto the grid deducted from their bills.
Schure says under the new program, net metering remains in place, but customers will be paid 6 cents in addition for each kilowatt-hour they ship onto the grid so they will have 13 cents deducted from their electric bill and earn 6 more cents as well.