An op-ed in a Boston, Massachusetts newspaper notes that state businesses are feeling the burn (of outrage, not good exercise), and it stems from rules passed this year by Governor Deval Patrick’s administration in an attempt to increase solar power across the state.

According to the writer, the state knew that the ruling – adopted under “emergency” regulations that attempted to decrease the use of fossil fuels from foreign sources – would raise costs for electric utility customers by up to $250 million per year.

However, it wasn’t until this year that the Mass. Dept. of Energy Resources calculated the value of the solar “carve out”, and agreed that costs could easily approach $250 million per year – a rise that would likely start in 2015 and last for five years before gradually declining by the end of the next decade.

The complaint, that the new mandate befuddles existing energy contracts and sets indecipherable quotas for future solar energy adoption, is expressed by TransCanada Corp. Director Mike Hachey, who says the state should be thinking of ways to lower the cost of doing business, given the dire condition of the economy and the precipitous rise in energy costs across Massachusetts, which in 2009 were the highest in the nation.

TransCanada sells electricity and natural gas at the retail level to hundreds of businesses across Canada and the Northeast, including hospitals, colleges, municipal power cooperatives, and multi-national corporations. The electricity is generated from a multiplicity of sources, largely natural gas, and allows the company to control about 2,000 megawatts of capacity.

Massachusetts’ electricity prices, in 2009, were $0.1794 per kilowatt hour. This was exceeded only by Hawaii, where prices were $0.2328 per kilowatt hour during the same year.

What the writer doesn’t reveal until the very end is the fact that Massachusetts’ solar initiative still comprises less than one percent of overall energy costs and usage in the state, and that the actual cost to consumers will be about 50 to 60 cents per month.

Direct Energy Director Chris Kallaher is reported describing it as a “fairly expensive way to produce power.”
Sensible individuals will realize that it is a remarkably cheap way to advance clean, renewable solar energy, and the cost is still less than the total spent on fossil fuel subsidies, which reached a total of $72 billion in 2009, or more than twice as much as renewable energy technologies, which limped along on a mere $29 billion.

Bite your tongue, Chris.