The Green Team took their research on the road to the State Capitol in Harrisburg where they met with Senator Judith Schwank and Representative David Maloney and a host of other State Legislators.
Most notably, the team met the President of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Mr. Rick Ebert. During this meeting, the team learned that the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, under pressure from large commercial power generators, is considering the adoption of a policy that would limit systems operated by customer-generators (farmers, homeowners with solar panels, small scale wind farms, …) to no more than 110% of their annual electric consumption. Effectively, this policy eliminates a return on the initial investment in the construction of such systems by eliminating the income generated by the sale of the excess electricity back to the power grid. |
This elimination removes the incentive for farmers and private citizens to invest in these environmentally beneficial alternate energy systems.
Educating the public on this discovery and trying to preven it from happening became one of the key focuses of the Green Team’s Final Challenge participation
Educating the public on this discovery and trying to preven it from happening became one of the key focuses of the Green Team’s Final Challenge participation