Comment on Easy-to-use solar panels are coming, but utilities are trying to delay them
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 3 days agoOhio does something like that. We have separate contracts with a heavily regulated grid operator for distributing power, and our choice of generation companies for providing power.
The grid operator does our metering and billing, but forwards our generation charge to the provider we select.
ysjet@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Considering how horribly corrupt PUCO is- quite literally the largest modern bribery scandal (possibly the largest in the history) of the US, lets maybe not Ohio as an example here.
For context for everyone else, this was so bad republicans literally threw a senior republican politician (sitting state representative, former speaker of the house) in jail for a 20 year sentence.
TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I love a story with a happy ending.
ysjet@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Oh no, everyone else in the republican party got off scott-free, including the current sitting governor, and the laws and funding that were bribed into existence are, still around as a result, and the taxpayer money (over 1 billion of it) won’t be repaid.
I think the only exceptions to them getting off scott-free is Larry Householder, who I mentioned is in jail, and Sam Randazzo, the former PUCO chair who committed suicide. And I supposed technically the ex GOP chair Matt Borges, who was convicted, but released almost immediately.
FirstEnergy themselves are being investigated, the sitting US Senator just testified iirc last week on the matter, but the politicians that facilitated everything have otherwise not been charged with anything and there’s no intent to, and the judge seems fairly intent on ensuring no one at FirstEnergy goes to jail as well. She’s been overreaching by trying to squash any journalistic coverage of the court case, to the point of where multiple newspapers/news companies are suing her. She also just straight up dismissed money laundering charges, claiming that the prosecution hadn’t proven that the defendants knew that they payments they made were illegal… despite the prosecution providing the defendants’ own text messages celebrating it, and documents from FirstEnergy’s own attorney advising against the payment. On top of that, the case is still ongoing.
So yeah, it’s fucked, and it’s likely to resolve with them getting away with it. $60 million for over $1 billion in taxpayer money, propping up power plants that don’t even serve Ohio.
TronBronson@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ya I haven’t seen any media on this, thanks for bringing me into the loop.