A battle over solar power in Nevada
The problem here stems from two things:<p>1) Net metering means that the power company is required to buy electricity at retail rates from their customers instead of wholesale rates, which puts quite a burden on them.  Why should they have to buy at a higher rate?<p>2) Electric companies for decades have been rolling the cost of transmission into the variable rate portion of people&#x27;s bills.  This means that larger consumers (who tend to be richer) have been subsidizing the poorer customers.  This is generally considered a good thing by most, since it allows poorer people to have electricity (because you don&#x27;t want to live in a society where some people have electricity and some don&#x27;t).  The solution here is to raise the fixed portion of the bill to cover the true cost of transmission, and then place a tax on those who go &quot;off grid&quot; to straight out subsidize the poor, so it&#x27;s more obvious that is what is happening (And presumably most people would still support).