Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin honored Green Mountain Power last week for its innovative and effective solar incentive program.

The utility, the second largest in the state, received the Governor’s Environmental Award.

Green Mountain Power has long offered a net-metering incentive to customers who install solar panels on their homes or businesses.

“That was a state requirement that started about 10 years ago,” said Dotty Schnure, Green Mountain Power spokeswoman. “But we offered six cents above and beyond that.”

The utility began its SolarGMP program in 2008 and has since offered an additional six cents per kilowatt hour produced by residential and small business solar installations.

The program was so successful that it catapulted Vermont into a new era for solar development. Before the incentive, people in the Green Mountain service area installed an average of 20 solar arrays a year. Now they install more than 200, Schnure said.

“Solar has unique benefits to us because it’s all peak power,” Schnure said. “It’s producing at the time of day when power is most expensive in New England.”

That’s part of the reason the utility adopted the additional solar incentive.

Green Mountain Power CEO Mary Powell has long been a strong advocate for solar.

"Solar power is especially important on hot summer afternoons, when it produces the most energy at the exact time that people are switching on their air conditioners, causing demand for electricity to soar,” Powell was quoted in a press release. “Every kilowatt of solar electricity produced is a kilowatt we don't have to buy at market rates during the hours of peak demand."

The program has been so successful that the Vermont state legislature passed a law, which went into effect July 1, that all utilities will have to offer similar incentives. The requirement is that consumers be offered a total package value of at least 20 cents per kilowatt hour for their solar arrays, Schnure said.

Green Mountain Power offers a little more than a 13-cent savings through its net-metering program, and the additional six-cent incentive helps the utility achieve that requirement.

“The different utilities will meet that goal in different ways,” she said.

Pictured: Green Mountain Power executives accepting an award at the 2009 Governor's Environmental Awards for Environmental Excellence & Pollution Prevention.