net metering

Environmentalists and solar power energy supporters gathered at Colorado's Public Utilities Commission to voice their support for net metering, a way for independent, home-based solar power to be siphoned onto the grid. Xcel, the state's main energy supplier, claims that net metering doesn't make it enough money.

Bolstered by roughly 245 sunny days per year and a stringent voter-approved renewable energy standard, Colorado’s solar industry has grown 20-fold in the last half decade. And a coalition of 280 businesses and organizations and 11,000 individuals are now petitioning Governor John Hickenlooper to keep the momentum going, asking him to help push their “3,000 solar megawatts by 2030” goal.