Yesterday, the state senate’s Utilities Commission took five and a half hours of public testimony on a bill that would overhaul an alternative energy practice called “net metering.”

This practice allows people with solar panels to sell the excess energy they produce back to the grid at the retail rate.   But under Senator Brandt Hershman’s bill, utility companies would be allowed to reimburse owners at a lower rate, the wholesale rate.

President of the Indiana Energy Association Mark Maassel says this would protect non-solar customers.

Maassel was one of four speakers who testified in support of the bill. But MOST of the five and a half hours of testimony opposed it. Objections were presented by small business owners.  Scott Turney of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association was one of many asking for exemptions for schools.

“You’re not the education committee. You’re not the appropriations committee,” he says. “You’re the utilities committee, but you do stand able to help education and move money back to the classroom.”

Religious organizations also asked for an exemption.

The committee might look at the bill again next week.