Big utilities try to tilt solar energy market in their favor

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's energy utilities want state lawmakers to pass a law that critics say would muscle out smaller companies from the emerging solar energy market.

Republican state Sen. Brandt Hershman's bill would sharply curtail the benefits of a practice called net metering for solar panel owners, which enables them to feed excess energy into the power grid in exchange for a credit on their bill.

Duke Energy Corp., the largest electricity company in the United States, this year plans to launch a "community solar" program in South Carolina and seek regulatory permission to do the same in North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky and Ohio, as well as Indiana, utility vice president Melisa Johns said.

Jeffrey R. S. Brownson, a solar expert and engineering professor at Penn State University, says he has not seen data that suggests the small amount of solar energy generated in the U.S. is unduly taxing on the power grid.

In Indiana, It's just the latest measure pushed by Republicans, who dominate the Statehouse, which would corner a market, or benefit longtime political allies and campaign donors.

[...] last year lawmakers passed vaping industry regulations that created a monopoly for one security firm that became the sole gate keeper of who could manufacture and sell the nicotine-laced liquid consumed through vaping.