Green power coming to Saipan

It’s been a year or two since the “Green Power” law was passed by the CNMI Legislature. Basically, the law allows for a concept called “net metering.” There are two ways you can use alternative (solar/wind) power. First, you can buy the power generating equipment—solar panels or windmills—and buy batteries that store the power you generate. Then you draw upon your stored power from the batteries to meet your power needs. There are a couple of difficulties with this. First, the batteries are really expensive, so cost goes up when you want to store your own power. Second, you have to generate enough power to meet your demands. This is the method you use to live “off the grid.” You generate and store your own power.

The other method is “net metering.” You buy the solar panels or windmills, but your house is still connected to the utility. The power you generate gets fed into the city power grid. If you don’t generate enough power to meet your needs, you get the extra you need from the utility. If you produce more than you need, you feed the extra power into the grid for others to use, and the utility pays you for the power you send to other customers. The excess feeds through your meter and runs your meter backwards, thus the term “net metering”. With this method, you use the grid as your “storage” so you save the cost of batteries. Of course, without storing the power yourself, when the CUC power goes out, yours does too. This method is less expensive than the first, and it allows the utility to benefit from the extra power produced by the consumer.

The fact that we have this net metering law opens some huge possibilities for the consumer to bring down the power rates and also to contribute to power generation for other customers.

As many of you know, when a law passes, it can’t really be put into action until regulations are written to define the details of the implementation of the law. The regulations for the net metering law have not been completed, so at this moment, none of us can benefit from the law. But, the good news is that the regulations are currently being drafted.

The regulations being drafted are a blend of regulations from a U.S. green power NGO and a few states. The CUC administration appears to be committed to making net metering happen, so that the private sector can help CUC meet its customers’ needs cost-effectively and reliably. Oil will soon become unaffordable to small markets like the CNMI. We will need the sun, the wind, the ocean and geothermal resources to power our lives.

I have put more information on some of the details of the regulation on my blog, and if you are interested in getting involved in the process, please look over some of the issues at www.MarianasEye.blogspot.com.

With the cost of oil rising, alternative energy sources become increasingly attractive. I expect that within a few weeks after the regulations are adopted, we’ll see solar panels and windmills rising on the island.

[I](David Khorram, MD is a board certified ophthalmologist and director of Marianas Eye Institute and the author of the book, World Peace, a Blind Wife, and Gecko Tails. Comments and questions are welcome. Call 235-9090 or email him through www.MarianasEye.com, or leave comments at www.MarianasEye.blogspot.com. Copyright © 2008 David Khorram)[/I]