Our organization has signed on to this letter encouraging third-party ownership of solar projects at Wisconsin homes and businesses:

As business owners and utility customers, we support policies that expand opportunities to access renewable energy where we live and work.

More than 20 states (including Illinois, Michigan, California, Colorado, Missouri and New Jersey) expressly allow third-party ownership of renewable energy systems on a customer’s premises. In those states, the renewable energy system need not be owned by the host customer. Instead, host customers can sign a contract with a third party who installs, operates, and owns a renewable energy system on the customer’s premises.

States that allow third-party owned renewable energy systems now have the most active markets in the country for small renewable energy systems, and we want Wisconsin to join their ranks.

We believe the Wisconsin renewable energy business community will enjoy substantial and sustained growth if allowed to use the same tools that are available in other states. This is why we strongly endorse the Clean Energy Choice initiative and support legislation that would exempt third-party-owned renewable energy systems that sell energy directly to the host customer from the definition of a public utility.

Clean Energy Choice embraces the virtues of customer choice, fiscal responsibility, property rights and social responsibility. It is a policy tool that allows citizens to exercise their preferences for renewable energy at no extra cost to ratepayers and taxpayers.