Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Was my teacher voice.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Laura said she was at a meeting and she may be late, which in fairness

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great, we're live. We're live. All right, welcome everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It's Thursday, February 12. We are taking testimony on h seven sixteen, which is a net metering bill. I am representative Kathleen James. I'm from the Bennington 4 District.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell from Saint John's Break. Chris Morrow, Windham, Windsor Bennington. Oracle Southworth, California two. Christopher Howland, Rutland, four.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Dara Torre, Washington two. And in the room.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Dana B. Perry from the Crasson Group.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Sophie McKinnon, Chamber of Commerce.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Peter Sterling, Newell Bank, Vermont.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. Alright. For the record.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. My name is Jared Cobb. I'm the general manager of Catamount Solar. Should I just jump right into it?

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Go for it. So

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: we're a solar contractor based in Randolph. We've been in business since 2010. We are formed as a worker owned cooperative, which is a unique business structure, especially for solar contractors, and essentially what that means is that once folks have been on board with Catmont for a couple of years, they can join as co owners, and then they get a say in the way that the business is run and also a share in the profits. So a neat thing about that is that we we get kids 18 years old on a tech school who join Catamount Solar, work on the roof, learn the trades, become an electrician, and then they become a co owner in our business, and they get a cut of an equal cut of profits the same that, you know, an exec would get, an electrician would get the same amount. It's a neat business structure, and it means that we've got some really good people on staff. Right now we have 25 employees, 13 co owners. Another thing that we do is we donate 5% of our net profits to community organizations, food shelves, conservation camps, migrant justice, groups like that. So I'm here today just to talk about this bill H seven sixteen, and really the thing that I think I wanna talk about is that it's it's difficult for customers to go solar right now. We had the loss of the federal tax credit, which was very sudden. We had the removal of $62,000,000 in solar for all funds for the state of Vermont, the economics of going solar now are just very different than than what they were. The the cost of materials are up because of tariffs, and the the payback on a symptom has gone from, you know, seven or eight years on a good site to twelve or thirteen years. And when you're sitting down at a kitchen table with a customer, trying to pitch them on the economics of solar, it's it's a really, really tough argument right now. So what we're asking for is for this bill to be passed. We think that if we no longer have the behind the meter tax, and I'll get into some of the specifics on this, which are in my handout, but if we don't have the behind the meter tax, which essentially taxes solar that people produce on their house or in their backyard, there's extreme amount of power. The utilities get a cut of that solar. It's not worth the full value. We think that that should be done away with. And then we also really need the state to stop chipping away at net metering compensation. It's been happening for the last eight years. And, you know, if we want solar, if we want distributed generation in Vermont, we need to we need to help the solar industry because it's it's a tough time right now. So I can get into the handouts section now where I explain the rates, and it it gets confusing quickly. So

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yes. It does.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: I'll do my best here. But essentially, what we did and this is on the third page, legislative handout, point number one. So what we did was we took somebody with a $2,000 electric bill, which is actually probably low nowadays. The rates in Vermont have gone up 5%, 5%, 7.3%, 7.5% in the last four years. So the rate rate of electricity is going up. Everybody knows this. They see their electric bill. It's very painful. I have solar on my roof. I shared a bunch of my net metering credits with with my in laws who live next door, and then I had a $300 bill last month despite me having a huge solar array on my roof. So the the first column here is a state blended rate, and that's the essentially, the average electric rate spread across the state. That comes into play when solar is exported on onto the grid. The net metering adjuster, we're comparing two points here 2020 and 2026 current. The net metering adjuster in 2020, folks were given an additional 2¢ per kilowatt hour for solar that was exported to the grid, and now that's negative 4¢ per kilowatt hour. In order to offset a $2,000 annual electric bill with a solar system, you need to build a 44% larger system because of the way that net metering is set up nowadays. So rather than a $33,000 system, and this is the same cost per watt, so I'm not adjusting for inflation or changing in material prices, but a $33,000 system in 2020 is a $48,000 system now, to account for the, the negative adjusters for for net metering. And then we had a federal tax credit last year for residential customers that went away. It was announced in July. We had a short five months to adjust for a huge disruption in the industry, but in 2020 that system would have actually cost the customer $23,000 with that tax credit, and then of course nowadays there is no tax credit. So you're looking at a 15,000 difference to cover the same electric bill for a solar system. And that goes back to my point of it's it's really hard to sell a system like that that was $15,000 cheaper six years

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: 25,000. Sorry,

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: 25,000. Yeah. Thanks for making my point.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: These are nominal dollars, so $20.20 dollars versus $26 right? Are you making adjustments? No, that's right. But Okay. You said that, just want to be clear. So

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: then point two, this kind of explains, and this gets really complicated. I think that one thing I was thinking about as I prepared this testimony is, man, wouldn't it be great to just step back and say, how would we structure solar right now in this environment? Because it just feels like we could just keep patching things on, and it feels like a super complicated system for customers. So you've got the price of electricity that's imported, and this is GMP rate one, the residential rate, which is, you know, most customers at Vermont. It gets even more complicated with some of the smaller municipal utilities. But, residential customer pays 21 and a half cents per kilowatt hour if they're pulling power in from the grid. If they're pushing power out from into the grid, you know, solar that they're producing on their roof or in their yard, they are compensated 14.4¢ a kilowatt hour currently. So it's a 7¢ per kilowatt hour knock. And then the kicker is that if that solar is getting produced on the roof and getting consumed in the home before it touches any of the utility's equipment, doesn't even touch, you know, the lines going out to the street or transmission or anything like that, they are knocked 4¢ on that 4¢ per kilowatt hour on that solar that's produced in their home, in their backyard. It's you know, I was talking to somebody who said, you know, it's like taxing tomatoes that you grow in your garden. Right? Like, why why should anybody get a cut of that power that the customer paid for to install on their own property, and they're using that electricity before it goes up to the grid? So those are kind of the three three ways that that I just wanted power is valued.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Just wanted to clarify something. So for the exported solar, we're taking the blended rate minus the 4¢. Correct. And for behind the meter, we take the retail rate minus the 4¢. Yep. So that's the distinction of those two categories. Right.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: And the reason for that is that the blended Peter may may be able to correct me, but my memory is that the the blended rate is is just so that everybody every person in Vermont who's exporting solar onto the grid is getting compensated at the same rate, so there's that blended that kind of average residential rate minus the percent per kilowatt hour. And the other thing about the oh, yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, go ahead, Campbell.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Sorry. I I don't know if it's the right time to ask you or if you can answer, but I'm just trying to understand, again, the physics of how this all happened. We heard yesterday that some utilities instructed in the Navy to probably don't have the equipment to be able to distinguish between what you're using in the house on a moment by moment or hourly basis versus what is getting exported back to the grid. So this would complicate their their billing and and maybe even be impossible without advanced metering infrastructure. So I don't know if you can do do you have any idea about that? Can you address that?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. That's a good question. So a house without solar has a utility meter that measures the electricity going into the house. Yeah. A house with solar, if you were to step over the border into New Hampshire, they would have a bidirectional meter that would measure electricity coming into the house and solar being exported into the grid. In Vermont, for most utilities, there's something called a production meter, which complicates systems, adds cost for install, makes the design and sale more complicated. And this production meter is in place to measure for that negative adjuster so that utilities can keep track of the solar that's produced in the home. So the solar, as it comes off the roof or on your yard, goes goes into an inverter, and then it goes into that production meter. And it measures before it hits anything, it measures how much solar is being produced. So if we were to eliminate the behind the meter tax, you don't need that production meter. You just need a bidirectional utility meter, which most states have. I don't know enough about individual municipality municipal utilities to know which ones I I believe we do a production meter on almost every system that measures the production of solar.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Sorry. You're gonna have to go shorter steps here. Why does the production meter enable building behind the meter powering?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: That's the way for the utility to measure how much solar you're producing on your

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: home or your yard. But So they subtract that's the total amount produced, and then they subtract what is going back through the meter to the grid in order to figure out in order to calculate what what what amount is being is being used in the house. Yeah. I mean, I think my point back to the grid. Is that is that what's happening?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. I'll I'll step back to, like, how would we design this if if we were designing it for common things. Before you get there.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Say how it is now.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. How it is now. Yeah.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Well, I you know, I I've worked in solar for a dozen years in in Vermont, and when I get my bill from the utility, I don't understand what's on on the bill. It's it's so complicated for a customer to look at and say, how much power did I use? How much, you know, how much power did I produce? How much did I use in my home? How much did I export? But, yeah, the the math is the utility is measuring how much power is coming in, to the home, how much power is being exported, and those are two different rates there, and then how much power is being produced, going through that production meter. So it's basically three measurements that they're taking. How much power is coming in, how much is going out, and then how much you're producing on your roof or in your backyard.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So the meter on most maybe these are just the advanced meters. I don't know. The meter maybe not. The meter, between the house and the grid is bidirectional, so it it it can measure both directions. Right? That's that's so and the utility knows those numbers, and so that's how they calculate what what the behind that we heard usage Yep. Is. K. Alright. And then how would you deny Well, if you wanna answer your question. Go ahead.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well, is this on that, though, before we move to the future world?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's kinda going to what he's mentioned about. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Stay here now. Go ahead.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So you mentioned New Hampshire, bi directional. Are you very familiar with New Hampshire's systems and what air utilities charge and how they charge? I'm not

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: the the the only thing I'm familiar with is that you don't need a production meter. You don't the utilities, all they measure is at that utility meter, the bidirectional. Mhmm. And I'm not familiar about Okay. Rates, and we we only do a little bit of work over the border in actual Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: One other point before I go into how would we like this? How would it make more sense for Vermonters? How would make it more economical? How would just how would you be able to read your utility bill without calling customer service? Is that batteries, you know, when you look at the the way that things are designed in in, you know, implemented now versus when they were six or eight years ago, batteries, home backup is is much is a much bigger thing now than it was six or eight years ago. So last year, Catamount and we're, you know, we're certainly not the the biggest installer in the state. We're we're kinda medium sized, but we installed 200 systems last year, and we installed 300 batteries. So on average, system that Catamount installed last year had one and a half batteries attached to it. And batteries mean that, you know, when you think about you know, when you're thinking about the arguments against this bill from utilities or PUC, The batteries allow the utility to to pull power when they really need it, and I actually included a a graph at the end of my my handout just showing how much money was saved in in on one day this past summer with the ability to dispatch power when utilities really need it at that peak moments when everybody's running their ACs and pool filters and and whatever else. That on one day in I forget if it was June or July, $19,000,000 was saved on that ISO New England grid from behind the meter solar and batteries. So the battery element, the mention the reason I'm mentioning this is that this production meter complicates battery installs way more than solar installs. We have a I was just reading an email as I walked in. We have a customer in Stowe on Stowe Electric who we installed their system in November, and Stowe is still trying to figure out how to how to meter their system because they're trying to get this production meter installed, but the battery has a built in battery and inverter. So, typically, the inverter and the battery are separate. So the inverter converts the electricity from the roof, which is DC power, into AC power that you'd use in your home. And the battery this is a Tesla Powerwall, which is the most common battery installed in Vermont. The Tesla Powerwall has a battery and the inverter, built into one box, and so Stowe Electric doesn't how how do you put a production meter in between the battery and the inverter when it's all in one box? So we have a customer who we installed three months ago who hasn't had their system turned on because Stowe doesn't know how to how to meter it. So batteries are a big part of what's going on right now, and this production meter, this behind the meter taxes is like it it really makes it super complicated for people.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: So of those 200 systems, do you know how many of them, have batteries attached to them?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Right. I said on average, one and a half just based on the sheer sheer volume. I just

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: asked because yesterday, we were having this discussion with the department about in their analysis, they wanna pull out batteries from solar, and I was saying that's really in actuality now, they're pretty much integrated systems in the most for the most part. So I I like the 1.5 statistics, but it'd be good to know. But roughly of those 200 systems, how many have batteries? Yeah. It's it's two thirds, I think, would be

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: a a good guess for us. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty close. So two thirds of customers are attaching batteries. And some of this happens too where somebody already has solar, and then they come and say, hey. I wanna get into the GMP lease, and I wanna get a battery installed. So, you know, yeah, 60 thirds, which, you know, six years ago was next to nothing. Batteries just were super expensive, and And

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I got nothing going on every year. Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: I'm waiting

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: for everybody else, but I had a question about that or anything. Yeah. And and and the GIP for rent. It looked me reading there. I I was thinking about doing this myself and actually had you guys have to give me an estimate and all that. And it it worked financially for me, so I I did I did do it. I went to add into a small system on my on my roof. The looking at the battery lease contract, the GMP, it looked like this was all the all the GMP's benefit and very little to to mine or to the to the customer's benefit because I could power I could I could charge the battery in in the summer with with electrons from my from my panels, but I couldn't use those electrons in in the evening or at night to to offset my my vote overnight because of the g m it was all it was all the the dis dispatch or the usage usage of the of that power in the battery was at at GMP's discretion. I didn't have any any access to it, except in case of an outage. Is that is that did I understand that correctly? That's what it seemed to me. I mean and I meant to ask this to hand this yesterday, but I think it's Yeah. Away from me.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: I mean, roughly, that's right. I I think the other the other piece of so so, yes, g m I mean, you know, it it it is a lease. Right? So GMP owns the batteries, so they can decide what happens with it. And customers certainly get the power during outages, and that's what people appreciate the most of it is that they have this very cheap $55 a month battery backup, and I don't have a system myself, and I'm not a salesperson, so it's hard for me to answer that. You

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: can't turn off connection to the grid and use batteries at your own discretion, except during specific times when GMP will notify you the day before. That Is that right? During these peak hours, they're gonna be drawing. Then then they override. But, otherwise, you can control it from the Tesla app. I'm gonna disconnect from the grid, and then it uses your battery until you tell it to go back off. Oh, okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's a Powerwall thing, though? Not

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Well yeah. I mean, like, that's how you control your battery system. Mhmm. Do you receive Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Jared, I apologize for coming in late. Just speaking of your testimony while you're talking and trying to catch up. Yeah. No worries. A question here you're referencing on. That's a figurative term. Correct?

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Correct. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. I I guess I could have put that in quotation.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: It's okay. I'm just I I apologize. That's me being.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: You were gonna design the perfect system then.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. Well, I I think we, you know, we need to acknowledge where we where we are right now and where where it looks like we're gonna be for at least the next few years, which is that there there's no federal incentive for for renewable energy. And if if anything, it's gonna get more challenging. The the solar panels that we buy today versus what we bought a year ago, they're they're 50% more expensive for these solar panels. There are these big tariff cases that are happening in Washington DC that that could make solar panel prices go up even more. So if if anything, the economics of solar are going to get worse, over the next few years. And we have you know, we had unprecedented demand last year for for solar. It was it was our biggest year ever last year. You know, Vermonters want to produce their own electricity. They they want you know, we have that community ethic in Vermont of, like, contributing to overall grid resiliency. Right? The more solar we have on the grid, the more batteries that are attached to it, the better it is for for everybody because it means we're not relying on these natural gas or oil plants when when everybody's turning on their their ACs or their their heat pumps. So we need to do you know, this this bill, I think, is, like, just kind of common sense. Like, I I would advocate for even more, but, you know, at at at the core of it, the the fact that a customer gets less than full value for the solar that they produce on their roof or in their in their backyard, it it's whenever I explain that to anybody, friends, family, customers, they're they're not happy with that. Like, why is it that I can't get full value the for the solar that I'm producing on my roof? So eliminating that that negative adjuster for the, you know, solar that's consumed in your own home before it touches the grid, that would save something like $5,000 for a customer. And and we were looking at the $25,000 delta between a system purchase in 2026 versus in 2020. So that that goes some way to helping with that $25,000, and that and that's actually, like, a very, you know, simple thing in my mind. We get rid of this extra piece of equipment, which is a production meter that's measuring that solar off the roof. The only purpose of that production meter is so that the utility can keep track of it and then deduct value from the customer. It complicates installs. You know, trying to figure out where equipment goes on the outside of houses is always is always a hard thing to do. So that that's the first thing. And then the negative adjuster, you know, overall, this negative 4¢ adjuster, if that goes to negative six, if that goes to negative eight, you know, we've already seen the the charts that that Rev has shown of the, you know, number of net metering registrations at Vermont over the years. Like, how how is it gonna be any different than than going to zero? Like, how we're we're we're at a point right now where it's only folks with, you know, on estate folks with a second home in Vermont or people with money who can really look at the the price of these systems and say, sure. You know? I'm gonna pay a $100 more per month for a solar system than my utility bill. Like, yeah. Let's let's go for that. Like, most Vermonters can't do that. Like, the the economics need to be either parity with your utility bill or a savings for solar over your utility bill to really get, you know, to get back to where we were as a state.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I had a question about that, And I'm glad you mentioned per month. Because that's how I put in my solar system a long time ago, and that was how I have always done the math. Think the cost of the system at the time was low twenties after the credit, and I didn't have that cash. You know? So I I financed it. And it's been important to me over the years, you know, that what I'm paying for my solar loan is offset by the net metering credits and by the drop in my electric bill. So it wasn't that I could come up with, you know, tens of thousands of dollars worth of cash. It had to do with my monthly household budget. And breaking even or coming out a little bit ahead for this, you know, investment I was making in basically like distributed power generation, which is good for all. So my question to you is, do you do most of your customers finance? Do you have many people who pay cash? Because we heard testimony yester you know, yesterday from the department about, know, is the main goal here just to help rich people save a little money on their electric bill? That is most certainly not the goal. So I just wondered if you could comment a little bit more about how people are financing these things from your point of view, and whether we've moved out of the realm now, whether they can keep their monthly in check.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Right. Right. I mean, you know, if if you got a loan six years ago, you know, you're you're paying 3% or something.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Like, twelve years ago.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Well Yeah. The guy was it was a while back. Yeah. And, yeah, my interest rate was low.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Right. And there are the loans right now available. We use Eastrise Credit Union, formerly BCQ, and Vermont Federal Credit Union as our loan providers, and their loan rates are about 7%. So when you look at these numbers, the the $25,000 difference, you know, and the difference in interest rates, you know, in 2020 versus now, it's if somebody takes out a loan, it it makes it makes this increased cost for for solar because of everything that's been happening. It makes it even worse. Right. So most of our customers are cash customers. Mhmm. Just just because it like, penciling it out even for cash, it's you need a very, like, perfect roof, you know, perfectly self facing, no trees shading it for it to even be close to your utility bill if you're paying cash. But when you're taking it on a loan, that just it blows it out of the water. So so yes, like this solar in Vermont right now is like you know, at at one point when when I when I think the state was doing more, when we had less of a disadvantage from federal policies, it it was like that middle that middle echelon of Vermonters. Sure. Like some, you know, the upper income folks, they can always do whatever they want, but the Right. The middle income folks were able to afford it even a couple of years ago. And now that that, like, segment of Vermonters that can afford to produce their own power to figure out how to save money on their electric bills, it's just it's just moving up. And if we if we think about more negative adjusters or, you know, not passing a bill like this, like, it it just keeps going up. And, you know, it's it's a point that I made in my handout, which is like, does Vermont you know, and this applies to many things that I'm sure you all are considering right now, but does Vermont want its policies dictated by by what's happening in Washington DC with with with a far right government attacking everything that Vermonters stand for? And and, like, I I don't wanna come off as a you know, the the folks that work for Catamount, they they hunt. They vote for Donald Trump. They they are, you know, like, you know, thirteenth generation Vermonters that that are interested in, you know, making good money for their families and having stable jobs. So I don't want this to come across as, like, as me, some progressive hippie talking about federal policy. It's just like, said stuff like, how do we get more Vermonters to have savings on their utility bills? We pass a bill like this, and we don't have more negative adjusters, and we don't have more more attacks by the utilities.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So I think you said before that by having the production having to install a production meter, that adds around $5,000 to the cost of an install. Is that is that did I that correctly?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: The cost to install it is is, like, $5,500, but the the value that's lost with with the negative adjuster being applied to behind the meter production, that is $5,000. If that makes sense. Right? So

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. That takes into account the the tax, the 4¢ that will be on the production.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Exactly. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Alright. Okay. So that it then I didn't understand it. So it's it's it's it's a $500 ad on on at the install stage. It's not that big an add at the install stage. Even the complication of the wiring and and and all that, it it's around $500. Is that

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the it's a yeah. The meter is not that much money. You're you're having to run some wires to it. I mean, it's it the simpler we can make things, the sooner the better. Sure. But it's not not a ton of additional money for Right.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Right. Yeah. Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Would happen if we did pass this bill and and that effectively meant that feature installs didn't require a production meter, what would that say to the existing installs that have a production meter? Is it greater than redundant and unnecessary?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yeah. The the anything that has already been installed would just keep the production meter that it has the you know, the utility technically owns the the meter itself. I I don't I don't I don't suspect that the utility would go, you know, drive around and collect all their meters. If they did, there would be an easy way to to make sure that because the meter makes sure that the electricity can pass through Yeah. That enclosure. So there would be an easy way for for us to supply customers what they need if the utility went and got their meters. But, yeah, it it wouldn't it wouldn't affect existing customers.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, yeah, I guess I'm not asking whether whether whether utilities would come and collect their meter or not, but they could. I can certainly be this. But just to it would render the the meters unnecessary and and redundant is is what is what I'm interested in. Right? So there would be no there's no reason to have those meters.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: There's no reason for it unless you want to, you know, take away from the value of of what customers are producing on their roof.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, that's what I thought I understood. I just wanna make sure that I did.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: Do you wanna explain your graph here just to the last page?

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Oh, yeah. That was that was a study that was done last summer. There was there was actually a couple of EPR stories on it, but it it it was essentially showing that there's, like, the yellow slice that that's showing hour by hour loads on the ISO New England grid. And so it's it's showing a, you know, a hot day in the summertime when there's a lot of power being called for on the grid. And what happens, as you all know, is the utilities fire up these really expensive plants to to supply that power. But that yellow slice was what behind the meter solar did in New England. It basically just cut down the the peaks of the power that was needed on the grid and saved. The estimate is it saved $19,000,000 in that one day that that solar dispatched.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Propellant?

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Behind the meter solar or behind the meter battery. Is this

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: It's it's both in that.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Yeah. So if you have a battery and you buy it with Green Mountain Power's lease program, you have to have leave them access to your battery. But if you install your own battery and you don't allow them access to the battery It must have worked well. To sort it yourself. Right. Then we can we don't need to argue over the wiring diagram of those three, you know, introduction meter. It has its it has its place. And we I've I've been involved with debt metering since '98. Since I was born. Since inception. Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Do folks have any more questions

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Richard?

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you so much

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: for being here.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Thanks for everybody.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Appreciate your time. We have about 10. Maybe we could stay on live and we could I could update folks on what we're trying to get done this week and what what we're trying to do this week. Folks have a session. Okay. So alrighty. So, method to the madness. We've got thanks again, Jared, for being here.

[Jared Cobb (General Manager, Catamount Solar)]: Yep. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So, we've got the three bills that we spent time on during the first half of the session, outdoor, heading to the floor. So, cell towers on the floor. Today and tomorrow cell towers on the floor. Friday and Tuesday is copper to fiber on the floor. And then tomorrow, we're voting out plant. And Bram's gonna join us remotely. He's gonna try to vote because he's the floor reporter. Although I did check. I just wanted to make sure I did check with the clerk. He he doesn't have to be in committee to vote in order to report the bill on the floor. I just wanted to make sure we weren't making some error. So that'll be on the floor next week. So we've cleared the decks of the bills that we worked on in the first half of the session. And then my what we've been doing the past couple weeks and a little bit next week is then trying to take enough testimony to do a gut check on the bills that some of our committee members have been working on all summer and fall. Right? So that was was and is. Rep Campbell's residential energy code bill, he has been working on that for years, actually. Rep Sibilia's data center bill, the disconnect bill, the net metering bill. So my my goal there has been to take take enough testimony so that we could either get a draft before the committee that people can be like, yep or nope. Or even just take enough foundational testimony, for example, like on data centers to decide, okay, what are we going to do? Are we going to vote this out? Are we going to revise it? What are we doing? So, that has been the point. To take those bills that have a lot of time and effort behind them and try to get them to the point where we know next steps. So, that's that. So, I feel like we're getting close on some of the testimony we've been taking on disconnects, net metering, data centers will wrap up by Friday, and we can get some sort of sense of what next steps might be. On the residential energy code bill, Scott's been working offline to try to take all the testimony we heard and distill it down to a draft that we can get some sort of sense of like, hey, you know, fire safety and OPR are kind of okay with this. So Scott's been working on that. Similarly, I listened to the testimony we heard from from host last week on 07:40. That's our greenhouse gas bill. And I've been trying to work on getting a draft that takes all the testimony and conversation we've heard to date and bring an updated draft back to the committee that ANR can get behind. So that's that. So my thought is that by next week, we're gonna be knowing what the next round of bills are that we might try to vote on before crossover. We've got three weeks left before crossover. So bills so we've got bills five bills essentially circling the runway, and they are either going to fly off into outer space or land by next week. So what are we going to do with the time we have left? I know a lot of folks are interested in having our community learn more and consider future nuclear power in Vermont. So, what I've been waiting for on that is that I feel like it's really important to start our testimony with the current state of affairs. So we've been waiting for the end cap report to come out, the annual report to come out from the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. And that was delayed. It's supposed to be published on February 14. So I've been in touch with Commissioner Johnson about the timing on that. Basically, he wanted to wait until the report was out to come in and present the report. So that's tentatively scheduled for next Tuesday, I think, maybe, or Wednesday. He's confirmed. So we're going to start by learning about Vernon. We also had talked in this committee last week about the thought of having some kind of a task force that would really look at what next steps would be for Vermont and for our energy future. And I had had this grand idea about a really broad task force that would have people from outside the legislature on it and get a wide range of stakeholders on that. So, I've been shopping that idea around. The problem is money. So I wanted to just update folks on a possible breakthrough, which is that there is an existing legislative task force called the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, was a task force or committee. Committee. Anyway,

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: this is one of those things that happens sometimes in the life of the legislature. There are there are things hiding underneath the sofa cushions. And so this is a it's a joint house senate committee or task force that is existing. It doesn't currently have members on it, except for two. And it's funded. So, joint committees like JITOC and like this committee, the budget contains a little bit of a set aside every year or every biennium for the committees that are going to be meeting and that are going have work to do in the off session. The good news is that these committees are so the money is there. And the committees are not expensive. All it costs is our legislative per diems. So, the cost of getting a committee like this appointed, up and running, giving it something to do over the summer and fall could maybe be as low as $14,000 and money is there. As opposed to a task force. Those can sometimes be $100,000 bucks. So, anyway, I was thinking next week after we hear from end of cap, we could get ledge counsel to come in and get Scott Moore to come in. And ledge counsel can walk us through the establishing statute for this committee, which you can go find it and read it. It's literally a paragraph. And our choice and we can get Scott to come in and say, here's here's what the money is. So our choice would be and I'm still talking to folks about this to figure out what's the necessary or best path. I think we wanna I I think that we would wanna give the committee pretty clear instructions about what we want them to work on. So they're not just wandering around over the summer and fall saying, who are we and what are we doing? It's unclear to me whether we need to change the statutory charge to do that. Or whether as a standing committee, we could simply work on a letter. You know, we could take testimony after you know, both before and after crossover to really get our heads wrapped around what do we want them to do? What would be a clear assignment? What's, like, a good task that's doable? And it is unclear to me at this point whether we need to change the statute to do that or whether we as a standing committee could simply basically deliver a letter. So that's that's the update. Well, that's where I think we're going. Whether we have to take that up for crossover or not is obviously a big question because if we need to pass something out of here before crossover in order to have make sure that work gets done over the summer, then we need to get cracking. So I'm trying to figure out the answer to that, like, today, tomorrow. I wanted to report back. So

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth (Member)]: It's like the plan.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's where we're at. That's what I'm thinking. So alright. So we can why don't we go off live just for a hot second?