Requiring utility customers to pay charges beyond the cost of the service they are paying for can be problematic. Too many individuals and businesses find themselves just barely making ends meet.
But one such program is returning both individual and societal good.
The program is the Renewable Energy Fund, managed by the R.I. Commerce Corporation, and its coffers are filled via a surcharge added to electric customers' bills. The money is then granted to applicants for the installation of renewable energy projects at homes and businesses in Rhode Island.
In the short run, the projects help the renewable energy sector of the economy stay busy, always a good thing.
In the medium run, the renewable projects – solar, wind or some forms of biomass – save the grantees money as they reduce the amount of electricity they must purchase from the grid. Sometimes, they even are able to sell excess electricity they produce back into the grid.
And in the long run, renewable energy projects reduce our reliance on power created by fossil fuels. Rhode Island gets 98 percent of its electricity from natural gas-generated plants. And while natural gas is the cleanest of the possible fossil fuels, the others being coal and oil, using gas still pumps tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
So what is the moral of this story? Good things very often require investment. And while taxing individuals and private enterprise to contribute to a public program is fraught with potential for abuse, it also can lead to outcomes everyone can celebrate. •