I recently read a news report about Faith Community Church in Greensboro, North Carolina who installed an “illegal” third party solar array. The array itself is a little over 5 kilo-Watts which is relatively small. The idea here is that the installer has installed the solar array on the church for free and will sell the church the energy it produces for half the rate the regional energy company Duke Energy charges. Even though this array only produces a mere fraction of the Energy the church requires, they have attracted the attention of the all-mighty Duke Energy (a massive energy utility in the south) and will likely be “Duking it-out” in court. So what gives? Why is this illegal in North Carolina? Why does Duke Energy even care? Continue Reading →