New York Just Showed Every Other State How To Do Solar Right

NEW YORK WANTS TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT SOLAR POWER. THE STATE HAS A GOAL TO CUT ITS GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS 80 PERCENT BELOW 1990 LEVELS BY 2050, AND IT'S ALREADY AMONG THE NATION'S SOLAR LEADERS. NEW YORK RANKS NINTH OVERALL FOR TOTAL INSTALLED SOLAR, AND IN 2013 ALONE IT ADDED ENOUGH TO POWER MORE THAN 10,000 HOMES.

While that's great news for solar companies and environmentalists, it's a bit of a problem for electric utilities. Until recently, the business model of electric companies hadn't changed much since it was created a century ago. (The country's first electric grid was strung up by Thomas Edison in Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1880s, and some parts of it continued to operate into the 2000s.) Utilities have depended on a steady growth in demand to stay ahead of the massive investments required to build power plants and the electric grid. But now, that tradition is crumbling-thanks to the crazy growth of rooftop solar and other alternative energy sources and some big advances in energy efficiency that have caused the overall demand for electricity to stop growing. Meanwhile, utilities in New York are also required to buy the excess power from solar buildings that produce more than they need-a policy called "net metering".