State Rep. Lanny Fite (R-Benton) and Sen. Jonathan Dismang (R-Searcy) have filed a new bill that would cripple Arkansas’s booming solar development.

Carrying water for Entergy and electric co-ops, the lawmakers want to rollback Arkansas’s 1:1 net-metering structure, where utility customers with solar panels who generate excess power receive a credit* on their electric bills for the excess power they send to the grid. That framework has allowed homeowners, businesses, farmers, nonprofits, schools, local governments and more to pay for the installation of solar panels with loans or through power-purchase agreements based on what they’ll save through excess generation.

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House Bill 1370 echoes the line of attack Entergy and the co-ops have directed at net-metering for years: that the policy shifts costs onto utility customers without solar panels. Entergy and Co. have long argued that they’re getting shorted on the expense of maintaining infrastructure and the grid. But they’ve repeatedly failed to sell this argument to the legislature, the Public Service Commission and the courts.

HB1370 would move away from 1:1 reimbursement to only reimbursing solar customers for “the avoided cost” to the utility for the excess power a solar customer produces. Solar customers now earn 11 cents per kilowatt hour. If this bill became law, they’d earn around 3 cents per kilowatt hour. The move would cripple future solar development in the state and, it seems, add years to the pay-off period for existing solar installations.

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A couple of interesting wrinkles here:

Entergy and the co-ops aren’t anti-solar. They’re installing solar arrays left and right. They just want to continue their monopoly of the industry.

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This doesn’t break down along party lines either. There’s big, big business and influence already benefiting from the existing rules. And already they’re pushing back.

These groups sent out the following letter to the General Assembly this morning:

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In 2019, in a big win for business and economic development, the state legislature passed The Solar Access Act (Act 464) that improved Arkansas’s solar energy regulations and opportunities. The vote was overwhelming: 83-5 in the House and 28-2 in the Senate. Since then, the Solar Access Act has allowed thousands of Arkansas families, businesses, local governments, school districts, nonprofit organizations, and houses of worship to install solar energy and save on their electric bills. At the same time, ACT 464 has created hundreds of good-paying jobs across the Natural State, promoted hundreds of millions of dollars of investment across all 75 Arkansas Counties, and provided competition and consumer choice in electricity markets.

The Solar Access Act has been an unqualified success story. It is working exactly as intended, and is providing an excellent example of legislative leadership with real and positive impacts for Arkansans. Solar energy installations in every county of our state provide real savings for Arkansas businesses, farmers, families and local government entities. Landmark solar projects for cities like Clarksville, Fayetteville and Hot Springs, for school districts like Batesville and Greenbrier, and for water utilities like Central Arkansas Water provide electricity price stability, investment in our communities, and strong contributions to our local tax base all across the Natural State.

Arkansas’s solar policies are now regarded as an economic development model for our region and nation. We commend the General Assembly for Act 464 and urge you to continue and protect these policies that are clearly working as intended.

We, the undersigned businesses, organizations, local governments, associations, and other entities urge the General Assembly to support Arkansas’ bipartisan and successful solar energy policies. Keep the economic development going. Keep ACT 464 working for Arkansas.

Much more to come on this.

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*A previous version of this post suggested that customers with solar panels sell excess power to utilities, but they actually get credited.

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