I applaud Alderman Brian McCarthy for introducing a bill to exempt residential and business solar installations from city property taxes.

Like many other homeowners who installed solar panels this past year, I was unaware that the added tax bite would negate my small savings on electricity. Distributed renewable energy, including solar and wind, benefits both electricity customers and providers by reducing the need for extra generating capacity and its high pollution levels, and by not needing to buy as much power during peak periods from other providers. It also reduces the need for huge projects such as the Kinder-Morgan pipeline and the Northern Pass electrical line, neither of which are intended to supply New Hampshire.

Rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars on ugly pipelines and transmission towers, let’s encourage more renewable power and bring down costs for businesses and consumers alike.

Steven Lionel

Nashua