Don’t believe the ‘dark money’ advertisements on TV

There is an ad on TV these days sponsored by dark money, which means that one cannot determine who is paying for the ads. It states that solar customers are not paying their fair share.

The two big energy companies in Iowa are pushing for a bill that would charge solar customers $300 per year for infrastructure. We put six solar panels on our garage, and have had one MidAmerican bill for the half month we have had the solar. We generated 3 KWH of electricity for which we got 0 credit.

As the Iowa Environmental Council noted in an analysis of net metering, customers with solar panels who generate electricity for the grid during peak hours get a credit of 10.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. MidAmerican sells that electricity to its other customers for 21 cents per kilowatt-hour during peak hours.

Our bill has a basic service charge, a rate equalization factor, energy adjustment clause, transmission cost adjustment, and energy efficiency charge. These charges add to $30.92 of our $145.24 bill. How is it that we are not paying our fair share of MidAmerican's energy costs?

If you believe in climate change and want to do something about it, contact your legislators and the governor and tell them to vote no on House File 669 and Senate File 583 or the solar energy industry in Iowa will be toast just like the rest of the country if we don't get started on clean energy.

Patricia McGee

Iowa City