According to the California Public Utilities Commission, October is Solar Energy Month. Great.

In my own locale, there is a San Benito County / South Santa Clara County tour scheduled for Oct. 3… notification from SJ Mercury News in my email today.

The promotion sounds great, but just remember, the big companies and their political friends are trying to shut down distributed solar by not extending the amount of home generated electricity that the utilities are required to purchase. AB 560 was supposed to fix that. According to Sponsor Nancy Skinner (Dem.. 14th AD)…

AB 560 – Renewable Energy Net Metering

This bill seeks to address the current statutory cap on net metering for customers who currently are able to receive credit for energy produced by their solar or wind system, and offset energy usage on the electricity bills.

So, if you want to go solar, it is a good time to make this an major issue. This bill died in committee in the State Senate and I have not seen any official notice that it was carried over to the next session. The Democratic leadership could not even get this no-brainer legislation out of committee. What Green Jobs if you can’t sell your solar back to the utilities? Is this another example of Steinberg’s leadership?