Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: We're live.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome, everybody. It is Friday, February 13, and this is House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. We have about an hour or so this morning to hear from, some of our utilities on h seven sixteen, which is an act relating to the net metering formula. So we, will introduce ourselves briefly and then ask folks in the room to say hello, and then we'll

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: turn it over to you for the record.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell from Saint John Gray. Richard Bailey, Lamoille too. Chris Morrow, Windham,

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: was there any Michael Southworth, Caledonia too. Christopher Howland, Rutland Ford?

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Tara Torre, Washington too. Laura Sibilia, Windham too.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. And who's joining us? Candice Morgan, Primatte Power.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Dana Lee Perry from the Crassie Group.

[Gabriel Molina]: Gabriel Molina, Downs Rutland Martin.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Steven Olsen, Washington Electric Cooperative.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Super. Paige Harna, Roger McCommons.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Go on, secretary Nancy.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Great. And Andrea Cohen from Mountain Electric Cooperative.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Thanks, everybody, for being here. For the record, our first witnesses.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So good morning, members of the committee. My name is Dan Potter. I'm a power planning analyst at Vermont Electric Cooperative, and I've been there for about six years.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: My name is Lisa Morris, also with Vermont Electric Cooperative. I've been there for thirteen years.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Alright. So we'll start our presentation. I'll start with there there are five takeaways I hope you leave this presentation with. The first is that net metering in VEC's service territory is happening in the towns that we serve with the lowest energy burdens and the highest incomes. That results in a cost shift from those folks who can afford the net meter to those folks who cannot afford the net meter. BEC is committed to a 100% clean and renewable power portfolio. We can get into the details of that a little later. We don't believe h seven sixteen would have any greenhouse gas reduction benefit. And then I also wanna clarify, you've heard this week that net metering is analogous, and the own use portion of net metering is analogous to an efficiency measure. And I'm gonna clarify that we don't we don't see it that way. It is not analogous to efficiency. And then lastly, the the previous versions of the legislature have left rate making for the net metering to the experts, those folks at the commission, and we would encourage you to keep it that way. So now we can jump into the details of our presentation. So VEC's power supply is currently 100% clean. We made that commitment starting in 2023, and it is a 100% carbon free on an annual basis. We are committed to 100% renewable. Our board made that commitment in February 2021 to become a 100% renewable starting in twenty third. We also believe it's imperative to keep rates as low as possible to support beneficial electrification. We want folks to move to electric vehicles, heat pump, heat pumps for the carbon reduction benefits. And that turns to the rate pressure that we experience from net metering. So on an annual basis and these numbers are are triple leaders. All they supported one of our recent rate cases, but on an annual basis, we experienced approximately $1,700,000 in upward rate pressure, and that is just from the excess generation from our metering facilities. That equates to about 1.7 of rates off every single year.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: And we have time for questions. Yeah. To to quickly excess generation. Right? You kinda have that as upward rate of attrition.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Of course. So when a net metering system puts power back onto the grid, that's when we're determining this as excess generations. We are required to purchase that power at a rate that was based on when that meter that facility submitted its application or received at the CPGF. That rate that we pay is on average a $180 a megawatt hour. But the value that we receive for the megawatt hour from that facility is significantly lower. It's on the order of 60 to $80 a megawatt hour. If you're building up the value of the energy, the renewable attributes, the capacity that it provides, you only get to about 80 60 to $80 a night. So there's differential between those two numbers. We pay a 180, but we receive $80 in value. The differential is what makes up this $1,700,000,000.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And you receive value how do you receive value?

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: It's it's like we had a contract with a power producer. When we when we purchase a megawatt hour, right, we get value from that megawatt hour because it's providing us with energy, capacity, and renewable natural gas.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So it's I I I get

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: I guess I'm I'm looking for a more more conceptual understanding. Is it

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: because you're buying power that you don't need? Is that is that

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So it's because the the value that we pay for that power is above the value that we receive from it. So we're paying more. It'd be like, this doughnut, you think it's worth $3, but you're making me buy it for 10.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Oh, I I got it down. Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: It's on pan. It was cool. It was cool. R.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Torre? And that's even though you didn't buy the equipment, you don't have to maintain the equipment. Is there any value there? Like, customer made that one does.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: That is

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: How does that get? Yeah.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: That's also true. If I was to go out and enter a power purchase agreement for a, let's say, five megawatt solar facility, that is also true of that facility.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And I'm interested to know you said that you had that across your service territory, you're seeing that net metering is happening in the highest income areas. And so as as we go through, I I would love your thoughts on that. To my mind, that's the problem we're trying to solve for, which is that we've made, you know, incrementally, we've made residential solar less and less and less financially attractive so that it now has has become something that rich people can afford to do and nobody else can afford to benefit from. So to to my mind, that's a problem.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Yeah. We have I I think we agree with you. There are some slides that we have up here that will demonstrate that in a little bit. But really the heart of this last bullet, though, is that we believe current net metering is not equitable, and it's not well distributed across our service program. We'll get into that. We have some slides that demonstrate

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: That exact plan. The first bullet here actually gets to representative Campbell's question is that we are paying more for the power than the value it provides. We're paying more than even if it is worth or that it is worth. And if you're looking at the entire net metering program, not just excess generation, the total cost is estimated at about $6,000,000 a year. That's averaging a $182 a megawatt hour. And if we were to go source that power from a different area, let's say a three or five megawatt facility, that cost would only be about in the range of

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: a 100 to a $110

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: a megawatt hour. So it's Okay. Fine. Cheaper for us to use this in a least cost way through other resources.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Put more on.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So your previous slide had a million 7 excess generation, and now you have 3,000,002. What what's the difference?

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Yeah. The difference is the value. So this the $3.02 is the total cost we pay for excess generation. Then those megawatt hours provided $1,500,000 in value to the co op. That's what we think the energy, the capacity, and the rest were. And then but we were required to pay three two, so the difference is the $1,700,000.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. And and how are you determining value? Mhmm.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: That's a good question. So we look at annual megawatt hours of generation, and we look at the energy market value. When we use that, I look at hourly LMPs, and I said, again, price and LMPs are a locational marginal prices. That's how price and wind values the energy at that particular location. We look for Vermont load zone. So we use those numbers to back up the value of the energy that these facilities produce. We look at the value of renewable energy credits. So we are BEC is always purchasing and selling renewable energy credits, and so we're able to use the contracts that we execute for similar products to back up that value. And then from a capacity and transmission purse perspective, we look at the production of solar facilities during the one hour that the ISO New England system peaks each year. That is our determinant for our capacity based charges. And we can look at how much was that solar producing at that hour, how much was it lowering our load. So we can directly correlate that to capacity savings. And then try our transmission related costs are based on our load during the one hour that the Vermont system peaks each month of the year. So, again, we can look at how much was solar producing during each of those hours and how much would that have lowered our load and saved us money. And so that's how we build up that value stack. Now I have a spreadsheet, complicated spreadsheet that does all of that math.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I'd like to see that. Sure. So in if you're taking, like, the ISO New England annual peak hour, for instance, so the value of distributed solar versus industrial solar is the same?

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Not necessarily. It's gonna be very close, but in but a larger scale solar system may produce a little more just because they may oversize the DC side of that system relative to the AC side.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. But effectively, you have some megawatt coming in or industrial solar versus rooftop solar at that hour. It's the same thing, essentially. Yeah.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: There may be a slight losses benefit to distributed solar versus but more or less, it's variable.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Same with the the Vermont monthly peak. If solar coming in here, solar coming in there Mhmm. Same thing. Right? Right. So so I'm trying to get to how you're so you're saying in this instance, the value from industrial solar is the same as the value from distributed solar Or for that for the ISO and in terms of heat, what you just described. I'm trying to understand the difference between the value of a distributed system versus industrial systems.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: It's gonna be almost identical with the slight exception of losses. So

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: and we're getting back to the original question of the the difference if you're calculating that metering.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: I would calculate the value from an a larger scale system in the in the same way.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So I'm still I'm I'm missing something here. So you were you were giving those as examples of the the net metering cost shift, but we just determined that the those are the same values as industrial. So is there a cost shift from industrial as well?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So I think the difference really is the rate that we're paying for one versus the other because we might be paying 8¢ per kilowatt hour for a large scale solar array, a power purchase agreement that we've had the opportunity to negotiate versus net metering where the average rate is probably something more like 18¢. It's all over the place. It varies from 14 to 26 depending on when they install their system, but that rate that we're paying is much higher. It's probably approximately double for net metering versus a power purchase agreement that we negotiated, but for the same solar kilowatt hours. I mean, not necessarily the same, but for solar kilowatt hours.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And so but you're paying that rate whether it's peak or nonpeak. Correct?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Yes. We have to pay we are paying that rate across across the board.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. So why is why is the p determinant part of the the equation in determining the cost shift?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Because that determines the value to us. That's part of the equation for the value. So there's the cost side, right, what we're saying, and then there's how we are valuing it, which are two pretty there's a pretty wide difference there between the two. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I mean, that's what we're trying to get at here. Like, maybe if I saw the spreadsheet, it would make more sense. But it's industrial and net metering, the peaks. You know, you're getting the same kilowatts from both the same time, then but you're paying different rates. I don't understand why the the peak matters.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: It The peak matters because the value stack builds up to whatever that is. But the amount we pay differs between a metering and an industrial system. Right? The value stack is calculated the same way for either one. But then how much we pay for that resource is what Lisa was saying. Right? We pay on average a $180 megawatt hour for net metering megawatt hour, and we pay much lower for our larger scale negotiated. But that's true any time of day, any time of year.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Mhmm. Mhmm.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Alright. I'm I'll let you keep continue.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Was just gonna say, wait. I wanna make sure we don't run out of time. Yeah.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: We'll keep we'll keep moving. I'm gonna turn it over to Lisa now, and these are So

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: you you may have seen this map. This is the energy burden across the state of Vermont by town, and this is just to kind of the areas with red or the areas with the largest energy burdens, and then the areas in blue are areas with lower energy burdens. So our service territory, of course, is the Northern third of Vermont, and you can see some of those highest energy burdens are in the Northeast Kingdom, and those towns that are highlighted are towns that are in our service territory. Okay. And so this is a map of our net metering systems that have been installed in our service territory. We have about 3,000 that are currently on our system. So that's about 8% of our total membership currently has a net metering system installed. And so just for some where your eye goes is to the warm colors, the red, yellow, and orange are the areas with the highest concentration of net metering. So you can see the areas with the larger energy burdens were more in the Northeast Kingdom, and the areas where we have seen more net metering systems installed over the years are in Chenden County and more in the Southwestern part of our service territory.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: R. Sibilia? I think I have

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: it now. I'm I'm I was just looking trying to understand the

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: legend. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. I should have started with that. Yeah. So yeah. So the the lighter green and the dark green are the areas with lower concentrations of net metering, and then the red, yellow, and orange are the higher concentrations in net metering.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Is there a percentage cap of net metering customers? Like, how many more can there's no net take?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: No. There's no cap. There was a cap until 2017 when the net there was some legislation that went into effect at that point, and then also the net metering rule was revised. And so since 2017, there has not been a catholic net metering.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: But there could be some constraints in certain areas in terms of distribution, like, in terms of getting a CPG. You not everyone's necessarily gonna Mhmm. Be able to get one. Is that true?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: In our service territory for the smaller scale projects, it's pretty much the case that anybody can install a net metering system. You may have to pay for an upgrade to your transformer. That's the main thing that we see that could be additional cost in terms of our infrastructure if you're installing a typical homeowner or small business size net metering system.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Can you give me the numerator and the denominator for like, how are we In

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: the on this map? Yeah. So it would be the total number of members on the circuit. So I guess that let's see. The numerator would be the the members who have net metering installed, and then the denominator would be the total number of members on that circuit. Yeah.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Undistributed net metering. Have you ever looked at what each project used for power in the past versus what they are producing?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: What I'm getting at is, are the projects sized to previous use averages, or are they overbuilt to increase the excess power to go into the grid?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So so in a couple slides down, I actually have a specific example of a really well sized net metering system. In general, I'd say it's it's kind of all over the place because sometimes people you know, maybe you installed net metering in 2020, and then you bought an electric vehicle and you installed a heat pump. And so now your net metering system is definitely too small for your current usage. It may have been sized appropriately for what you were previously doing, but we have seen a lot of the same people who, you know, are installing that metering or also buying one or two electric vehicles Mhmm. Installing heat pumps, you know, doing those other beneficial electrification measures that can double or even more can triple your usage.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Right. But as their power consumption goes up, they theoretically could add on to an existing.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: They could, and we've seen some of that as well. Yes.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: Alright. Thank you.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So this is just another visual to kind of show the distribution of that metering across our service territory. So again, you can see about 50% is in the islands and the Chittenden County portion of our service territory. So this would be as a share, 100% for net metering systems, about a third of that are installed in the Chittenden County area and another 14% are installed in the islands and another 15% are installed in the Memorial and parts of Franklin County, but it does tend to be that western side of our service territory where we see the majority of the systems. We know that there's been some discussion about own use. With the current structure of the net metering rates, the siting adjuster is charged on 100% of your generation, whether it was used on-site or sent back to the grid. If you generate a kilowatt hour, you have that siting charge. It used to be a siting adder, and now it's a siting charge. So this is an example of one specific net metering system that's in our service territory, and what we're looking at here is a week in June. You can see that the orange there, that is their generation, so the orange is their solar meter, and then the blue is their net meter. And in this example, they're generating more than they're using. Over the course of this week, it's right around the solstice, it's very sunny, it has that nice bell shape when it starts to come on in the morning, and then it peaks in the afternoon, and then it starts to fall off as the day progresses. And you can see also that there is some usage there, you know, after the solar has stopped generating, of course, in the evening. You know, you're still doing some things using some power. This could be an example where if you had a battery, you could supply 100% of your own usage if that was your goal. What we're seeing is probably somewhere around 8% of our members have batteries installed with solar, and the other 92%, it's just solar. And so, basically, what's happening is you're using the grid as a battery. So you're exporting those kilowatt hours to the grid. That's what that kind of mirror image in blue is showing you, is all of those kilowatt hours being delivered to the grid, and then you're pulling from the grid when your solar is not generating. So this is an example in June.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So would you be in favor of a system to incentivize people installing solar to also install batteries?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: No. We would not be in favor of that. And I can show you so we'll get to the next slide and kind of what this looks like on an annual basis with the solar. I mean, we we are kind of I'd say we're agnostic when it comes to batteries. We're happy to have members install them. We actually have a flexible load program that they can sign their battery up for, where they can get a bill credit if they're willing to let us use the battery during peak times. So that's when we're trying to hit that ISO New England peak and that monthly Vermont peak and lower our transmission and capacity costs. But we don't necessarily think because, I mean, it costs a significant amount of money, $25,000 maybe to install a couple of batteries. And so we don't necessarily think that the value is there. So we're not going to say, yes. You should install a battery, but we're happy to work with folks who want to install batteries.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: So the benefit to you guys for being able to peak shave and load manage is is insignificant?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: No. It's not insignificant. I mean, that's why we provide that's why we have the flexible load program where you can get an incentive for allowing us to do that. Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: But it's not significant enough to wanna incentivize people to get batteries.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: We we do. We have this program that pays for shared access to their batteries. The value streams that are building up that incentive are the peak shaving, so the transmission and capacity related con. But the sort of I think what you're getting at is the sum of these two things being greater than their separate parts. Right? That benefit, we we don't see. Maybe it's marginal, but we we are incentivizing folks who want to share access to their battery with us. We provide a financial incentive for that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So I need to do I need to make sure we manage our time. So how many slides do you guys have?

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: We have one. Few more. Three more.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Can we hold questions for Beck? Because I I know last time we ran out of time on Washington Electric. Very specifically.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: First, and then I can take the end or whatever.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: You mind? No. Totally. Okay. Because I'm I'm also feeling conscious that last time they got totally squeezed out the end, and that felt very unfair. Yep. So if we could hold questions for these guys and let you guys finish your slides.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Great. Okay. Thank you. So just to wrap up on this slide, June, in this example of this specific net metering case, it was the best month in terms of their phone use. So 56% of their usage was from the solar that was on their property, and that 44% was still from the grid. So it's not a fifty fifty split in that best month for own use purposes. So this is the exact same net metering system, that exact same home, and this is in December. So December was the worst month if you're looking at a twelve month time period. So only 4%. So you can see this graph here. Again, the blue is their billing meter or their net meter, and the orange is their solar meter. So it's still generating something, a little bit here and there, especially like it was actually right around the solstice, looks like we got some sun those days, panels aren't covered in snow. And so in that month, for the month of December, 4% of their usage was from their solar, and they were relying on the grid for 96% of their usage. So that gets back to that battery question. So the first slide, a battery can solve this problem. It could smooth out. You know? You could own supply for the entire month, probably, you know, a good portion of the summer, you could do that. In a month like December, you can't. It's not possible. You're gonna be using say you had a battery, you're gonna be using that power from the battery, and the solar is not gonna be able to resupply everything that you need during that time period. So and it's this isn't a fluke. I mean, this is just a seasonal limitation of solar. It really it falls off a cliff in November, and it doesn't really come back on until March. And especially what we're seeing with electric vehicles, with electrification of heating, and these other goals that we have in the state of Vermont is a real mismatch between solar and what we're trying to do with beneficial electrification. And so this is that exact same account. Again, the generation is orange and their usage is blue. And again, you can see that during the summer, the generation is two to three times what the usage is, but then in the winter, it's a fraction of what of what their usage is. So in this in this example, this number, for all three of these slides that I've shown for the meter data, was able to offset 100% of their energy charges on an annual Because the way that the net metering program works is you can bank those credits, spring and summer, and then you have that bank going into the winter months. And so despite the fact that they were using 96% of their energy came from the grid, and we need to supply that and have the power resources to supply that, they were able to offset all of their energy charges. And this is a very typical situation with net metering. So on an annual basis, only 27% of their own usage was from the solar produced on-site and 73% was from the grid. Then only 21% of the generation, so the total generation was used on-site and then 79% was sent back to the grid. Just to wrap up, even in this example of an ideally sized net metering system, it only produces about a quarter of its own power, and the other 75% is supplied by the grid, which as Dan started off with, we are currently carbon carbon free with our power supply, and we're gearing up for 100% renewable by 2030 for what's supplied by the grid. And then a significant portion of the EC's fixed operating costs are actually in the energy charge. So there's also the customer charge, but most maybe not most, but at least half of our operating costs are embedded in the energy charge. So everything that we need to do to, you know, keep power flowing to everybody, pay our employees, fix power outages, everything like that, a significant portion of those costs are in the energy charge, not in the customer charge. And so what that means is that net metering members, they're still relying on the grid, but they're underpaying for the service that's being provided. And then our current net metering rate, which is about 14¢ when you factor in the Abbott psyching adjuster, is still higher than what we would agree to pay for a Howard purchase agreement. It's significantly higher. And then the final point is just that we are a not for profit member owned electric co op, and so any additional costs that we incur are borne by our membership. So everybody who's paying their bill. One quick question, Lamoille. Yep. Second bullet point.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I just wanna make sure that I understand the operating costs that are embedded in the energy charge. Can you just kinda run down that? What's in the energy charge?

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Or what the energy charge pays for? So the energy charge, I mean, it obviously pays for energy, you know, the power supply. But, I mean, it also pays for, you know, things like our overhead costs. So our our employees, the cost of that your capital costs of, you know, infrastructure, just everything that we I don't know if you have a better way to explain.

[Rep. Richard Bailey]: What doesn't it pay for maybe is

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Well, when we do a cost of service study, we build up all the costs that it takes to run a utility. Right? T and D lines, employees, energy costs, all of that.

[Rep. Richard Bailey]: It is transmission and distribution.

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Yes. Sorry. Thank you. And then you you bucket those into your customer charge and your energy charge, and that's how we recoup the cost around the utility. And the point Lisa is making is that a large number of the costs that these metering facilities still rely upon, the T and D, some of the employees, right, everything to operate a grid is embedded within that energy charge. It's not like we've dumped it all into the customer charge. If you did that, your customer charge would be, you know, a $100 a month.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: So currently, just for some context, our customer charge is about $22 a month. So it'd be significantly higher than that, and that's just the unavoidable charge. So that's the one charge that net metering customers have to pay us. They have to pay the customer charge, the energy efficiency charge, every other charge they can offset on their bill with with their solar credits. Oh, we have to

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: move on. I'm sorry. Let me Okay. If it's real quick.

[Rep. Richard Bailey]: Hear what the customer charged them.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Oh, about $22.

[Rep. Richard Bailey]: $22 per day

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: for our residential companies. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thanks so much for your time.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Appreciate it.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: You. Alright. Let's as long as it's okay with Candice. Yeah. Of Yeah. Let's swap up and hear from Washington Electric who got rudely

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Well, it wasn't me, though. It was

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: But nonetheless,

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: still. It

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: It was terms of needing can you would you know how to set this thing up? So I've got my what is it, Sharon?

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Said it's still Well, you're

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: on Zoom. Share in the Zoom? Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. It might try to sit there.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: You wanna share screen?

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah. You can. Sorry.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: While this is going on, let me introduce myself. My name is Steve Knowlton. I'm president of the board of Washington Electric Cooperative. I've been president since about 2021, board member since 2015. I'm also a net meteor. I've been a net meteor for over eleven years now. So I'm reasonably well experienced in the economics of net metering as it applies to the user. I also realize that net metering, in talking with my members, our fellow members, net metering is a complicated subject. It's hard to understand. It's very hard for someone who gets the basic concept but doesn't really get the details that you've been presented with here today. Yes? Okay. You may wonder why, a board president is coming to talk to you instead of Lewis Porter, general manager, or someone knowledgeable like. You have to recognize that the board of the nonprofit, not for profit electric co op is essentially a regulatory body. It makes the decisions to direct the staff to do the same thing that the Public Utilities Commission does writ large with all of Vermont utilities. As members ourselves, we basically trying to ensure that electricity is offered at the lowest reasonable cost,

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: with adequate

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: reliability, and is delivered equitably to every member, and every member is charged equitably. In fact, in many states, electric co ops are not regulated by the Public Utilities Commission in that state, as they are basically, the electric utility and its board is responsible for carrying out the ethical performance of that utility with regard to its members. Thanks so much. Can I take you home and with with that precursor, let me let me continue on? Have to just because I'm limited in time and because it's been teed up very well by the presentation from the Farm Electric Co I'll just say that Washington Electric Co op does not support the restrictions that this bill would make to the PUC's regulatory responsibility. The commission has the responsibility to regulate the pace of that metering to protect the Vermont ratepayer from excessive costs, as has been described. Those excessive costs have been described excellently in the previous presentation. And here I'm quoting from the language from the last biennial commission from the PUC. And the department reminded me what the general assembly's responsibility is, to direct the commission to balance over time the pace of deployment and the cost of net metering with regard to the program's impact on rates. So when you look at what their tools are available to the commission, they can adjust the adders that's been described, and they can adjust the credits at the state blend in rate. Now, as a net meter, I know that the financial compensation of net metering is based on the utility retail rate and also the state blended rate. Both of those typically are rising over time, and so they represent a growing value to a net metering like myself. As the rates go up, my compensation goes up, and I get more and more of a financial benefit from investment in net metering. So adders really remain the only real lever that the commission has to affect this balancing of the pace of deployment. And it's our conjecture that this piecemeal restriction, if you will, of trying to adjust one little piece of the adder of the PUC's entire biennial process will review the pace of net metering is largely counterproductive to the commission's obligation to represent the interest of the various payers.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: This

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: is a slide listing other quotes from the biannual review of 2024. You may consider piling on, so let me just focus in on the first one, which is really the point of the matter. Without the increase, without the decrease of incentives for new systems, cost of new net metering power would increase, as I say, because rates are increasing, and this shifts even more cost to the ratepayers who don't net meter, and then further increase the statewide electric rates. And these are other interesting quotes in the interest of time. Let me proceed on. So I often think when I'm sitting in a board trying to make a decision on what's best for our members, I have to ask myself, who are the winners and losers? Well, who benefits financially from the conditions of this bill would be the solar installers and the residential net meters, like myself. There'd be somewhat higher financial compensation than without the bill, and obviously it spurs construction of new installation and employment. And I have to say, since I'm a net mirror, it's kind of in my soul to say, gosh, I can make more money. That's great. My investment's better. And in fact, most studies have shown that the reason people net mirrors primarily to save energy, to save money on their electric bills. This is borne out. I see it in my own soul, and I also recognize that there are polls quoted by the Regulatory Assistance Project in their documents. But that's what's driving most people to decide in that mirror. The losers, well, I think that's been described perfectly well in the last presentation. So I don't want you to go into this in any detail. I just wanted to point out to repeat that the upward migration of electric rates driven by net metering, and particularly substantial levels of net metering, it basically erodes support for increasing the electrification and investment in resilience if the utility has to spend more money on power that it really doesn't need to. Now, you might ask yourself, well, surely there's environmental benefits to supporting that metering. Well, it's probably not as profound as you might think. WECC itself is 100 renewable. All WECC rate payers have already invested through their co op to receive, and the equipment and the services to receive renewable energy all the time, 20 fourseven. So the addition of, if you will, unconstrained net metering is not really a benefit for the societal goals of environmental goals of Washington Electric. Perhaps more importantly, Vermont electricity portfolio is already 91% free of fossil fuel generation. Less than 3% of Vermont's greenhouse gas emission comes from the electric sector. And I think the DEC and Green Mountain Power are doing a great job of accessing clean and renewable energy. So as I say, there's not a great societal need to particularly prioritize net metering as a means of putting more renewable power on the grid, Please.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Just to and you don't have to answer now, but just a thought as we've seen presentations. I understand. I get a little bit sort of mystified here. I feel like for me anyway, the conversation is missing the point when we push back on rooftop residential solar because it doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To me that's that's not is not the main point for me anyway. I'm and so I I don't think we can have this conversation now, but I'm curious to know. I I see great benefits to helping Vermonters deploy rooftop residential because it is a, you know, it's a kind of less controversial, used to be a more low barrier way to get a lot of, you know, a lot of homes and garages feeding the grid and power flowing back and forth. And as we start to pair that with battery, it just feels like a resilience move to me. And that this all this small scale individual power generation is is a good goal. And so to me, point isn't so much the greenhouse gas emissions, it's moving toward the grid of the future. And so I'm just curious to know, we do not have time to have this conversation right now. But if net metering isn't a way to help spur that or make that more affordable for more Vermonters than than what is? Because we see all the battles erupting all over the state about putting, you know, commercial or utility scale solar arrays in fields. Or so the the answer can't be that we can't put solar anywhere. So I just challenge everybody to be like, what is the answer here? So let's move on. I just wanted to say that the argument about greenhouse gas reductions for me is kind of missing it's missing the point.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Can you remind me in terms of incentives for solar? Do you have any incentives for solar that are not borne by the other ratepayers in WACC?

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Well, with the EC, we participate in an ACRE project, which takes place in both their territory. We have members that do this. Are supportive of the balcony solar effort, among whom. Let's see. Let me think a little bit more about that. Representative, I think he might be I agree with what you said, and I hope that you'll like my last slide.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Yeah, I don't want philosophical, but-

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Well, my last slide is philosophical.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, great.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: You and I can

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We'll have a mind melt.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: Yeah, we'll have a cup of tea or something. Okay, so the point of the environmental benefit, one of the reasons we're doing this and we're doing renewable energy is not just to empower people to produce their own power, which I think Well, I'll wait till my last slide. Okay. Just cut me off. I want

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: to give you an idea of

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: the history of that meter at Washington Electric. Obviously, this is lower axis is years, and then this is a cumulative history of the number of kilowatt hours or kilowatts of net metering that's been installed in five wiper members. Now, it is an interesting curve. Back in the turn of the century, net metering cost about $10 a watt to install net metering power. No such thing as batteries. Net metering, the net metering incentive was an excellent idea at that time to get that started, to give the industry the chance to improve all their methods, their supplies, whatnot. There's no question on my mind that net metering on the left hand side of this graph was well worth it. And you can see that pace the of net metering improved and actually improved exponentially until about 2016 or 2017. At that time, it was clear that the incentive had done its job. Net metering costs, installation costs had dropped to about $3 a watt, so this is an incentive that worked. It empowered the industry to become mature and productive. Since that time, can see that the installations have continued to rise pretty continuously, and near the end of this period, in the late 2020s, batteries are now becoming available. So we're facing, at this time, thirty years after the start of net metering, we're facing a whole new world. We've got a mature industry. We've got batteries. We've got lots of automation capabilities available for this. We've got the ability to use batteries to address peak issues. This is on the right. This is not your grandmother's net metering in water. This is not your grandmother's local solar. Times have changed, and it's my closing thought that while I do not support if you will, the tinkering of the PUC regulation, PUC requirement to regulate PACE net metering, I believe that there is a role for, the role remains for people to install, produce, generate their own power. I don't think that's a question. How will that person, how will those people do it economically? Dan raised that question as that's a concern. But nonetheless, I don't think that's an object that I as a Vermonter would question. As I say, installers have brought the installation costs down by over a factor of three. Earlier incentives have done their job. Storage batteries. Can I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: ask a question on that? I'll defer to your question. So we've heard from solar installers that the absence of the federal tax credit, which was 30%, and the addition of tariffs on all the imported goods, that actually the cost of installing a system is dramatically higher now, 2026, than it has been in many years.

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: I can't speak to the tariffs. This cost of $3 per watt is largely before the tax rebate that I would have received if I had installed the system. I believe that $3 a watt is what you pay for the open panels and everything else. And then a tax a tax credit comes on on top of that. At least that's the way it was for our system.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Right. So, I mean, some of the genesis of this bill is because the conditions you describe are no longer relevant to the market in Vermont. Mhmm. And that actually, the cost of the system is dramatically higher. The rate adjusters just it's small move towards re leveling it so that the cost you described, you know, so the numbers pencil out in a slightly better way. But I'm just challenging a little bit the context you're setting because that might have been true two years ago, but it's not true in 2026 from what we've heard from the actual installers. Mhmm. But please keep I

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: I I would still maintain that the environment we're facing both from an environmental point of view, the penetration of renewables into Vermont's energy portfolio is dramatic compared to what it was when net metering was and should have been incentivized as strong as you think was. Really, the title of my slide is really the points I'm trying to make is we now face, rather than making ad hoc changes, we face, I think, a need to really reexamine the whole net metering concept in order to find out what's best for people to be able to put on rooftop solar, possibly battery storage, possibly with a different kind of compensation scheme, such as this had been done in California. The Net Metering three point zero is a way of trying to address these issues while still encouraging and allowing people who won't produce and use their own power to do so. Because I think that solar repair batteries, which may not be, as Dan has said, it may not be an economic slam dunk at this point. I still maintain that that's really the way to engage solar, to give you a consistent part of not the entire part, but a consistent part of our energy portfolio. And I'll just say that similar reforms have already been pioneered with other states with the, you know, strong with solar penetration that's the strongest in the state of Vermont. So that's that's my basic testimony.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you so much. I'm not trying to I wanna leave time for Candice. We're gonna run into lunch a little bit. Okay, folks? Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate I you being

[Steve Knowlton (Washington Electric Cooperative Board President)]: appreciate you're asking me to come. I appreciate the chance to talk and then maybe give a little bit, you know, the perspective of a a right payer. I don't represent the Washington Electric Co op. I represent the right payers of Washington Electric.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Thank you so much. Candice. Alright. Thanks for being flexible now.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: No problem.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Thanks, Ben. They'll too much of this.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Absolutely.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Alright. Good morning. For the record, Janice Morgan from Green Mountain Power. I wanna thank my our fellow utilities for speaking today on a lot of the mechanics around net metering, billing considerations. Really appreciated it. Vermont Electric co op slides showing some of the sample systems and usage. I thought it was very helpful context. So I wanna give a shout out there. Given that you are up against the lunch hour, I just wanted to emphasize a couple points that were raised today and then talk specifically about a couple other programs that we have at Green Mountain Power as well and give some thoughts on

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: the bill before you.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: It's a it's a topic that warrants a lot of discussion, right, as we start thinking about both the bill before you and the conversation generally around that metering. Appreciate mister Knowlton's last slide too, sort of thinking future looking at how we want to support a more distributed grid. I think there's a lot of considerations and net metering and and sort of tinkering with the rate structure is a pretty blunt instrument for a more comprehensive review that might at some point be the right approach. So just to get that right out of the gate, you know, GMP supports the process that is that the PUC has been using in this world for the last couple biennial reviews. I think that they address a lot of the key components and have a task to look at both the the benefits and the costs of the net metering program and look at the costs that it would be to install those systems. And I have to assume and I believe you'll be hearing from the PUC later today too that certainly the changes from the federal government related to the ITC is another fact in the, you know, swirl of everything that's happening in this space too. So, we would not be in support of what's before you in H716 and would prefer to have the PUC continue to do that fair and transparent process that you've heard about from Mr. Core and I know we'll be hearing about later today as well. In general, you know, as you've heard from us throughout this session when I've been here a couple of times and when we have engaged in different spaces as well, we are facing a lot of cost pressures. When folks are talking about the regional rates and or the regional costs and property taxes and health care collectively that is, you know, something that all of our customers are facing, both in their own lives and then also through the electric rates because it's not, and specifically when we think about the cost for electricity and the costs of power that we are purchasing, it is a direct pass through to our customers. So anytime we're asked to pay for the same energy but at a higher cost, metering or standard offer or other things in that space, that is an additional cost pressure for all of our customers. So, you've heard some examples of the cost shift and that is true for GMP customers as well. So I just didn't want to lose that thread either. The other thing I wanted to emphasize a little bit further from earlier testimony today too is that under the current renewable energy standard, tier two requires us to purchase 20% from in state renewable energy resources. And that includes, you know, the net metering systems, that are in our territory. And, you know, more and more also, we're trying to look at ways to have to bring on renewable resources that are at a more cost effective rate. So it might be some of the larger scale solar ones that you're talking about. Not the really, really major big ones, but the sort of medium tier, which are just a lower price per kilowatt hour than what we would otherwise be procuring through net metering. So that is something that we have been implementing. We had an RFP for projects that went out over the summer and received some good proposals from solar, like, from local solar companies. Right? So I know you've heard the testimony from folks that are looking for support in this space, but they're the ones that would ultimately building those projects to meet the tier two obligations that we have. A really important part because I think it's it's critical as we think through what customers and, Vermont folks want in their energy system is they do want options. Right? And so, we recognize that there is still a place for this type of generation to happen. I think that, like I said, the PUC process does a nice job of looking at what the costs and the benefits are and are trying to help minimize that cost shift to other customers as the program continues. But additionally, no matter what the metering compensation might be, there are still plenty of folks for whom having a roof top solar is just not gonna pencil out or they don't own their own roof, they're renters, there are other folks that are in different situations. And so we are really supportive of and excited that we've been able to implement the ACRE program similar to how you heard from BEC discount for income eligible customers in addition to our energy assistance program. And that allows us to pair and bring on new solar projects and then direct the value to those customers that are eligible. And so I think it's about 4¢ per kilowatt hour reduction on those customers' bills. And like I said, that is about it's in addition to our energy assistance program as well. Yes.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: The AECO program, I know we've learned a lot about that and it seems like such a great program. Where are your ACRE projects? Have you struggled to cite them? Are they hard to build?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: We've been having pretty good luck. I can send actually our most recent filed report on the ACRE program, which I think would be helpful too. And we highlight some of those specific programs. I know there's some in the Rutland area, some in the southern part of the state as well, both that are online or in the queue as well. So

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'd love to, yes, see more about that, sure. R. Torre? I was just gonna say

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: I'd love to hear from all the utilities, like, about their acre stats and and waiting lists Yes. To get a sense of demand and Yeah. What's involved.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. I think that that would be a great discussion for sure. And, you know, the to call back also to the PUC's act one forty two report, that was also a recommendation for from the PUC in terms of, looking at ways to both bring on new projects and also direct some bill support to customers and expansion of ACRE is really a good program to look at. And so that's also what I wanted to leave the committee with a little bit that net metering is not it's one tool and toolbox around getting more renewable energy out there, but there are other ways that can help do and have the same effect, but without that broader cost shift and cost to other customers as well. So I just that's the yeah. Noon. I'd be happy to take questions though for sure too, but I just wanted to Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: A couple questions. Yep.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Do you have are you gonna be submitting written testimony? I don't have anything written other than my notes, but I'm happy if it's helpful. I'll share the ACRE report for sure, and, yeah, I can come up with a couple key points just for reference.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Because what I'd love to see from all the folks who testified today, I I didn't wanna I was already interrupting up, is the, I don't think this is proprietary information, like what's your average monthly electric bill? And how can how how can you quantify the actual impact of the net meter cost shift on your average customer? Like, I was just trying to do some googling while we were, you know, always dangerous while we were talking. You know, if the average bill is, you know, $100, I mean, I'm just completely making this up. Yep. And you estimate that the net impact of net metering cost shift is 1.7%. So, $4 a month. Mhmm. It it it's helpful to see because I feel like where where our conversations about so many things bogged down is when we look quite rightly on what the average Vermonter is paying for the policies that benefit all of us. Where I get concerned is when we get stuck on that number and we can't move past it. From a very high level, just to reiterate, I see great benefits for all of us in trying to make some progress on bringing solar online in Vermont.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And I'm looking for ways that we can all agree work for everybody. And when we constantly get stuck on the no, if we spend a penny to save a dime, how do we get past a penny?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Understood. And I'm happy to provide that specific request as well. I think it's helpful because it's not just, you know, there's net metering and there's also some standard offer projects that are also above and beyond what the cost of that power would be. So there's a, like, a yeah. There's a public policy cost, and I I hear you, and I think we all support finding that right balance around what are we looking for as our broader goals, and then how are we paying for them. Right? And where is the right thing? I think the the other thing I just wanted to also throw out there, not to, like, add something right before the break too, but, you know, I think historically, the place that folks have gone to figure out how to pay for these programs has been electric customers. And there are other mechanisms, right? There could be a Vermont specific tax credit, for example, or some other tools as well that support that and they're not just paid for only by electric customers. Because I think as you heard from the earlier witnesses as well, this sector has done a lot of good work that we're very happy to support and work that we're wanting to continue to do as well. But we do have to continue to find a balance between what we're asking all of our customers to pay for in terms of supporting state policy goals too. Which gets back to

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: and then I I see you. Which gets back to some of the context setting information that we've had about Vermonters overall energy burden. And what part of that is our regulated electric sector? And what part of that is our unregulated home heating sector? So, you know, trying to always stay with the big picture, but it's hard sometimes. Yeah. I

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: think in addition to, the information that the chair has asked for, I am curious, you know, I think I asked Washington Electric this, but I'm curious from all of the utilities if you can help us understand what are the non ratepayer, if there are such things, programs that you are offering in terms of for incentives or that you have in the past, thinking about, you know, ideas. I agree. We wanna help people, you know, have more renewables. Yeah. You know, we are also talking about disconnections Mhmm. Here. I'm very cognizant of the old ratepayer issue. And so where are other places that we can think about that can be helpful in terms of incentivizing renewables and help helping with distributed generation. So just any additional information on other programs that you have or other ways For sure. To help us with that.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. Mean, in addition yeah. AGRE was a general fund or ARPA funds, and then I think some of the transition to general fund program. And so that's how it's able to get how those customers are able to be connected is with those dollars, and not costs from all of their customers. Right? And then we also have a shared solar program, which which is similar to ACRE, but instead of general fund or sort of grant dollars, the incentive to the income eligible customers is coming in the form of a bonus investment tax credit that the solar developer is passing on through our power purchase agreement with them. And that's based on the fact that they're able to directly connect with low income customers as part of our tariff that we've offered in that program. And so that's also in addition to those other programs as well. And so those are couple of things that we're connecting renewable programs or renewable energy projects with income eligible customers without electric customers being the ones that are paying for the incentive amount. But, yeah, I'm happy to call up in more details on both of those. Yes.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: And you can get that moved back too. And I apologize. I'm sorry. I had a

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: name for the point. Sure. Thank you. Rex Southworth?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Southworth]: So you touched on Vermont specific time. Mhmm. We heard testimony yesterday, New York offers a $5,000 price. Yeah. Is that even something that makes sense or is viable, or is that even anywhere near enough to

[Dan Potter (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: have an impact?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: That's a great question. And, you know, I was, reflecting on some of the written testimony I saw from a few witnesses that you had yesterday. They did throw out a dollar amount of $5,000 both for, I think, for the New York credit and also what they would hope to see as the result of causing the negative adjuster as I like this bill contemplates. So it feels like a reasonable place to start, but it would be, I think, potentially more of a question for developers and, you know, digging through what that could look like. I'm trying not to put on what I used to have as a hat, which is that I work in the tax department. So I guess I would stop there before, you know, ways and means members and others are concerned about it all. But I do think, like I said, it's a if the goal is to, you know, fix or or backfill a loss from a tax code change at the federal level, it feels like a conversation to at least have before we just go down to what has been perceived as an easier route from electric customers in that metering.

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

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Everybody Candice, did you cover your I think so. Yeah. Okay. For thanks for staying late, everybody, and thank you for being here. And we'll look for that follow-up testimony, we'll

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: get it posted. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alright. Thanks, everybody.

[Lisa Morris (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Alright. You may have done that. You wanna step outside. Yeah. Yeah. You.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Candice, Oh, thanks so much. Of course.

[Rep. Dara Torre (Clerk)]: Thank you.