Perhaps not the swankiest thing to do on a hot summer Saturday afternoon but with the enticement of ice cream, swag, and a talk by Nobel Prize winner Michael Oppenheimer, the Block Island Utility District’s Annual meeting on Saturday was well attended, with every seat under the tent occupied.The occasion marked the fourth anniversary of the power company’s transformation from a privately held investor-led entity to a not-for-profit operating under a cooperative model, although it stills does business underthe familiar Block Island Power Company name.The meeting included all the usual agenda items that go along with an annual meeting, with updates on the accomplishments over the past year – of which there were quite a few, and nerdy things like debt equity ratiosand audit reports.The public input section of the meeting revealed that there is still a lot of confusion, if not outright misunderstanding of the new net metering tariff, which was approved by the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission earlier this year after the Utility District had legislation successfully pass through the state legislature. That legislation allowed the utility to exceed the three-percent of peak cap on net metering, or customer generated power, that was set for
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