The Vermont House has advanced legislation expanding a popular program allowing property owners to generate their own electricity and sell some of it back to their utilities.
State law now caps the amount of power a utility is expected to take under such arrangements at 4 percent of the companies' peak power demand. The bill taken up Wednesday would expand that to 15 percent. The House gave the measure preliminary approval on a roll call vote of 136 to 8. It's due up for final approval on Thursday.
The push for legislation came after some of Vermont's smaller utilities equaled or exceeded the 4 percent cap and then closed their net metering programs to new applications or limited the size of projects that can come on line.
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