Metering Policies

Metering policies provide what may be the simplest and most effective mechanism for accelerating the development of the renewable energy economy. Net metering has already proven to be an effective incentive for investment in micro-power generation such as residential rooftop solar installations. However, most existing net metering policies are unfair to the micro consumer/producer in that they treat their net production as "surplus" to be awarded to the utility without compensation.

If net metering is a product of the centralized energy paradigm, in which the utilities' customers are given the priveledge of zeroing out their bills with micro-generation, then balanced metering is borne of the distributed energy paradigm, in which energy producer/consumers buy and sell energy as peers on a level playing field.