Reporter's Notebook

Navy net-metering

I’ve just come back from a talk given by Chris Tindal, deputy director of renewable energy for the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and facilities — a man with a title so long it needs its own paragraph.

He said that Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif. has a geothermal power plant on the base that makes more electricity than it can use, so it sells some of its power back to the grid.  It’s a large-scale version of “net metering,” in which private homes with solar panels or other alternative energy sources can sell power back to their electricity providers.

Tindal said the Department of the Navy wants to recreate these kinds of arrangements at bases in other states, but each state has different regulations about who can sell power back to the grid and how much. It’ll be interesting to watch the federal government deal with the states as it tries to meet its mandate for cutting 30 percent of its energy usage by 2015.