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## You've read _5_ _stories_ this month. Support the CT Mirror reporting you rely on. Donate When I was growing up, I walked 30 minutes to school. My father had to bike for more than two hours for his day-to-day work. My mother did most of the crop-growing work manually. My teacher used a manually operated mimeo machine to make copies of test papers. My classmates and I spent many hours in the school library, though by today’s standards it did not look like a library. Fast forward to today. My children’s school is two minutes away, and they take the school bus. If I do not want to walk much, I can walk only from my house to the driveway, and from the parking lot to my office, altogether under 100 steps. Machines now do much of the agricultural work that once consumed the bodies of farmers. Students, teachers, and professors can ask an AI chatbot almost any question that comes to mind. A person no longer needs to physically search shelves of books to begin learning. In my own work, AI-assisted tools can help me respond to emails faster, review literature faster, and draft factsheets faster. Almost every task seems to have become easier, faster, or more convenient. But the day does not feel lighter. It feels denser. Technology keeps saving time, but the saved time rarely returns to us as freedom. It is usually converted into more output, faster response expectations, higher standards, more documentation, and more communication. If an email once took 15 minutes and now takes five, the inbox does not shrink. It expands. If a factsheet can be drafted in one-fourth the time, we still do not get the afternoon back. We may be asked to produce more factsheets, add graphics, create social media posts, and organize a webinar. Generative AI can improve productivity in writing, customer service, and other knowledge tasks. These gains are real. But who gets the benefit of that saved time? Our economic system is very good at converting efficiency into profit, scale, and competition. If one worker can do more with technology, the first question is often not, “Can that worker now have a calmer life?” but the question is, “How much more can this worker produce?” At the top of the economy, the time dividend is easy to see. For example, Nvidia, whose chips power much of the AI boom, saw its market value rise from about $400 billion at the end of 2022 to $5.4 trillion by May 2026. This shows that the financial rewards of efficiency are being captured very quickly somewhere. Are ordinary people receiving any comparable dividends? We have also begun to organize ordinary life around work. A cousin of mine recently bought a water bottle, and the first thing he connected it to was work: something to take to the workplace, to stay hydrated while being productive. We have microwaves so food can be warmed in seconds, often not to enjoy a meal slowly, but to eat quickly and return to work. Even convenience has become part of the work system. Survival used to require labor, but now, life itself seems organized mainly to support work. Should it be for more emails, more reports, more meetings, more assignments, and more metrics showing a higher impact of our work? Or should some of it be returned to families, neighborhoods, civic life, sleep, walking, thinking, reading slowly, and simply being unavailable for a while? Another side of this is that we may be living through a transition. AI is already moving beyond screens and into machines. Service robots are becoming more common in workplaces, and companies are testing humanoid robots in factories and warehouses. In the near future, personalized robots may help with cleaning, cooking, and a wide range of personal and professional tasks. ## More VIEWPOINTS ### Should we be frightened of Ebola? ### A CT assembly for participatory budgeting Yet time-saving technology does not automatically give people more freedom. When machines make tasks easier, society often responds by raising expectations. If everything becomes more efficient, the standard for what counts as “enough” may keep shifting farther out of reach. With the advancement of technology, even if the end goal is a fairy-tale future where no one has to work and everyone spends life being entertained, we should ask whether that would truly satisfy us. A life of endless entertainment would probably become empty very quickly. Most people do not want to be passive spectators of their own lives. We want to be useful. We want dignity, relationships, creativity, rest, and meaning. So perhaps the real goal is not a world without work, but a world where work supports life instead of swallowing it. _Shuresh Ghimire., Ph.D., is an educator at the University of Connecticut._ The opinions expressed by contributors are theirs alone. CT Mirror welcomes rebuttal or opposing views to this and all its commentaries. Read our guidelines and submit your commentary here.

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House lawmakers passed an extension of Connecticut’s solar incentive programs on Friday over the objections of Republicans who argued that the proliferation of rooftop solar has become a costly burden on the rest of the state’s electric customers. The legislation, House Bill 5340, reauthorizes the state’s existing residential, commercial and community solar programs through 2035. Without an extension, those programs will expire at the end of next year. The bill includes other provisions clearing the way for the adoption of plug-in solar panels, expediting permitting and imposing a one-year moratorium on the permitting of large solar arrays in the town of East Windsor, which is home to the largest array in Connecticut. The bill went through numerous revisions over the last week as its sponsors negotiated with representatives of the solar industry and environmental advocates over ways to contain costs for the programs while still maintaining a viable market for solar in the state. In the end, H.B. 5340 imposes a budget target of $85 million a year for all three programs, which the bill’s authors said represented a nearly 10% saving over the programs’ historic costs. Advocates said they would accept those constraints to ensure the programs’ continuation. “If they don’t pass a solar bill this session to extend the programs, it would be an epic failure on the part of a legislature,” said Lori Brown, the executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters. But Republicans — who have made rising energy costs and opposition to the public benefits charge a centerpiece of their election pitch — promised to make the process painful for Democrats by eating up time debating the bill in both chambers. Their ranks include state Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, who serves as a ranking member of the Energy and Technology Committee and is seeking the GOP nomination for governor. During a press conference on Thursday, Fazio disputed Democrats’ promises of savings, saying the bill would lock customers into paying for the energy produced by the new rooftop installations that are developed by utilizing the state’s solar incentives. The contracts to purchase that excess solar power can run up to 20 years and are recovered through the public benefits charge. “This is an unconscionable policy. It’s extraordinarily expensive,” Fazio said. “It will result in billions of dollars in new costs on the backs of consumers into the future. It’s doubling down on all the failed policies of the past that made Connecticut the second-highest cost electricity state in the entire country.” ## More STORIES IN Energy/ENvironment ### CT lawmakers drop effort to ban Styrofoam takeout containers — again ### CT bottle bill proposals narrowed down to just one: criminal charges ## More STORIES in Politics ### Larson gets Working Families Party endorsement ### House leaders calm lawmakers ticked off by colleague’s TikTok Democrats initially planned to run the bill in the House on Thursday evening, however it was pushed off by a day due to series of lengthy debates on other bills. House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, identified H.B. 5340 as one of a handful of Democratic priorities that lawmakers planned to push through before this year’s session adjourns at midnight on Wednesday. The House began its debate on the bill around 5:30 p.m. on Friday and quickly hit a roadblock as Republicans, led by state Rep. Tracy Marra, R-Darien, objected to the lack of a ratepayer impact statement, as is required by state law. That sent staffers scrambling to produce the necessary statement, which said that the “intent” of bill is to reduce rates. Exactly how much savings are to be had, however, depends on the how the electric utilities Eversource and United Illuminating choose to implement the programs, according to the analysis. Marra said those calculations were implausible given the historic costs of the state’s solar programs. But after several additional hours of questioning, the House voted 99 to 43 in favor of the bill. Its next stop is in the Senate, where Fazio said he planned to lead the debate. “I don’t know that we’ll be able to block it,” Fazio said. “But we’ll give it the old college try.” Energy and Technology Committee Chair Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, briefs members of the media on Friday, May 1 prior to a planned vote on legislation to extend the state’s existing solar regulations. State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, the bill’s primary author and chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee, accused Republicans of distorting the narrative around the state’s solar programs by focusing on their cumulative costs over decades, rather than the annual costs that the legislation seeks to constrain. The combined cost of the state’s solar incentives, he added, amounts to less than a penny per kilowatt hour of electricity on a customers’ bill. “It’s sort of like refinancing your mortgage and being focused on how much you’re going to pay in principal and interest, rather than how much you pay a month, which is the thing you care about,” Steinberg said. ### **Cut through the noise with our expert CT political reporters.** Join over 9,000 readers of The Issue, a free weekly newsletter with analysis and insight. Sign up Solar developers also argue that lawmakers and state officials have placed too great an emphasis on the tangible costs of the state’s solar programs without adequately researching the indirect benefits of solar that come about from reduced strain on the electric grid and lower supply costs. They support language in the bill directing the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to make an effort to calculate those costs and incorporate them into the into future incentives. The bill also exempts solar installations that are paired with battery storage from the new budget targets, which advocates say will help reduce periods of peak energy demand. “If we’re making decisions just based on costs, we’re making lousy decisions,” said Mike Trahan, the executive director of the Connecticut Solar and Storage Association. “We need to consider both sides of the coin.” Other pieces of the bill were less controversial, including a section that would allow residents to utilize plug-in solar panels of up to 1,200 watts without the approval of their local utility. While the panels have become broadly popular in countries such as Germany, they have faced regulatory hurdles in the U.S. In the last year, Utah, Virginia and Maine have each passed laws aimed at easing their adoption. Even without the need for utility approval, however, Steinberg and other advocates cautioned that it could be months or even years before plug-in panels become widely — and legally — available. The bill requires that any plug-in solar panels get approval from a product safety organization such as Underwriters Laboratories, as well as the state’s building and fire codes. “The more things we add into this, for safety, actually make the cost higher and make it less of a populist option,” Steinberg said. “So we’re trying to strike that balance. I think the key takeaway is nothing really is going to happen until UL has a standard that we can all adhere to.” The bill would also authorize a study of “agri-volatic” solar projects located on active farmland, as well as a proposal championed by Gov. Ned Lamont to create an statewide online platform to streamline residential solar permitting. “That’s been under-the-radar a little bit, but it can go a long way to reducing the costs of solar,” Christopher Phelps, the state director of Environment Connecticut, said of the permitting language. The bill also imposes a one-year moratorium on the approval of new grid-scale solar arrays in parts of the Connecticut River Valley where residents and officials have grown alarmed over the proliferation of solar arrays on farmland and open space. The provision was originally tailored to include only the town of East Windsor, which is home to the 120-megawatt Gravel Pit Solar project, the largest solar array in the state. In March, the Connecticut Siting Council approved a 30-megawatt expansion of Gravel Pit Solar, over the objections of local officials. One of the final tweaks to the bill on Friday expanded the provision to apply to neighboring Enfield, in order to draw support from state Rep. Carol Hall, R-Enfield. The moratorium would not apply retroactively to the expansion project, but it would effectively block Gravel Pit’s owners, DESRI Holdings, from pursuing a second project, Saltbox Solar. East Windsor First Selectman Jason Bowsza said Thursday that he’d be pushing lawmakers to make significant reforms to the process of siting large solar facilities but that he was thankful to have a pause for his town. “I’m not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Bowsza said. “I’m grateful that we are hopefully going to see some relief this year, and as we look into the 2027 legislative session, prior to that moratorium being lifted, I’m hoping that there can be some truly meaningful policy changes that will make the whole process more equitable across the state.” A spokesperson for DESRI declined to comment on the legislation. # Connecticut needs you now. Across the country, reporters and news organizations are challenged, dismissed, even targeted for doing their jobs. It’s happening to CT Mirror journalists, too. This year, for the first time, CT Mirror has needed to budget for security to protect our reporters at events and large-scale demonstrations where their physical safety was at risk, and even online where reporters have faced harassment. **That’s the environment we're operating in. And it’s exactly why local journalism is needed now.** CT Mirror reporters run toward the hard questions. They dig into budgets, contracts, and submit near-endless information requests to uncover stories that need telling. They sit through the long hearings. They follow the facts wherever they lead. Holding power to account isn’t a slogan here — it’s our mission. People like you, who read our stories, know that standing alongside our journalists as a member ensures the news Connecticut needs remains independent, local, and free to read. CT Mirror exists for one reason: to inform and strengthen a civically engaged public. When local journalism is strong, communities are stronger. Transparency improves. Accountability deepens. Democracy works better. If you believe Connecticut deserves local reporting that is fearless, fair, and accessible to all, **can you start a $15 monthly donation today**? Stand with the journalists who stand up for Connecticut and our democracy. Strengthen your community. Be a co-publisher of CT Mirror. Thank you.

A race against the clock is underway for Connecticut lawmakers to come up with a plan for the future of rooftop solar in the state. Connecticut’s existing residential and commercial solar programs, established in 2022, are due to expire at the end of next year unless lawmakers vote to reauthorize them. House Bill 5340 would extend both programs, as well as related community solar and battery storage initiatives. But the bill was still a work in progress Monday, as its proponents worked to hammer out language aimed at keeping the costs of solar development from ballooning. At the same time, the legislation has become a vehicle for lawmakers seeking to advance other provisions on solar permitting and the development of large, grid-scale arrays. All those moving parts left the bill’s primary author, state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, rushing to come up with a final draft that can pass through both chambers before the legislature adjourns this year’s session on May 6. “Every time I think I have it put to bed, it springs another leak,” Steinberg said in an interview Monday. An initial vote on the bill could come as soon as Tuesday in the House, he added. Solar advocates are fearful that rules and limitations on the development of rooftop solar could hobble an industry that is already reeling from the loss of federal tax credits and President Donald Trump’s general hostility toward renewable forms of energy. But Democrats in the legislature — including those who have long advocated for expanding solar power — say they need to be conscientious of costs at time when customers are dealing with higher utility bills. “We have framed this legislation, which is really pretty important, in that it defines our strategy for solar going forward for a number of years,” said Steinberg, who serves as co-chair of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee. “But it’s all predicated on being fiscally responsible to ratepayers and containing costs.” Connecticut’s current solar strategy includes programs setting deployment targets and establishing compensation rates for both residential and nonresidential solar customers. In addition, the state has a “shared clean energy facility,” or SCEF, program to help develop solar and other renewable energy projects and make them**** available to renters or other customers who lack conventional access to rooftop panels. All three solar programs are managed by the state’s two investor-owned electric utilities, Eversource and United Illuminating. The costs of running the programs, and of compensating the owners of solar panels for the power they produce, are passed along to customers through the public benefits charge. ## More STORIES IN Energy/ENvironment ### Trump admin. to pay 2 more companies to walk away from offshore wind leases ### CT public benefits charge cut; electricity rates to fall by nearly 15% A fourth program, administered by the Connecticut Green Bank, provides incentives for solar customers to purchase battery storage systems and is also funded by the public benefits charge. ### Containing costs In February, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Commission released a report recommending that lawmakers make several changes to each existing solar program before allowing them to continue. Among the changes PURA recommended was a reduction in the compensation rates for solar panel owners who export power onto the grid. That would incentivize more owners to purchase batteries to store excess power until periods when solar output is lower, such as in the evenings, thus reducing overall demand on the electric grid, the report said. The report also recommended placing monetary caps on commercial and community solar projects to help control costs. Currently, the rollout of those programs is kept in check by output-based caps of 100 megawatts for commercial solar projects and 50 megawatts for SCEF projects. There is no annual cap on the residential solar program. The idea of capping the cost of the solar programs is supported by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the state’s Office of Consumer Counsel, which advocates on behalf of utility customers. But solar companies say they’re being unfairly singled out at a time when energy prices are rising for many reasons — including the volatile price of fossil fuel. “We understand cost containment and affordability, we get all that,” said Mike Trahan, the executive director the Connecticut Solar and Energy Storage Association. “We remain disappointed that the benefits side of solar is not being discussed in any corner of this bill, just the cost side.” The bill’s budget target also comes on the heels of PURA’s decision in December to reduce payments made to solar owners for exporting power onto the grid, in order to better align the cost of those incentives with the state’s electricity prices. Trahan said the benefits of solar include lower supply costs and less strain on the electric grid, which reduce the need for costly repairs that get passed along to customers through utility rates. He also criticized the process by which H.B. 5340 has gone through multiple revisions in recent weeks, growing in size from 18 pages in March to 41 pages as of Monday. “The debate that’s occurred between the bill that came out of committee and [the bill] now is largely — well, is entirely — behind closed doors,” Trahan said. “The bill’s doubled in size and it hasn’t been a public process.” Still, the latest draft of the bill that was circulating Monday managed to address some of the most serious concerns that had been raised by solar advocates. That included the removal of language that some had said appeared to require owners of solar panels sell all of their output to the local utility company — instead of using some of it to meet their own energy needs. Steinberg said the bill would establish a “budget target” — as opposed to a hard cap — of $85 million annually for solar, while allowing PURA to determine how to adjust or divide those costs between the three programs. Steinberg said the cap would represent about a savings of about 10% off the current cost of those programs. (A spokesperson for PURA said the cost of all three solar programs was around $118 million in 2025.) Residential solar systems that are paired with battery storage would be exempt from the total budget target, in order to further promote the growth of battery storage. Steinberg said that PURA would be able to adjust the target by up to 5% each year in response to market conditions. “I think it is generally workable,” said Kyle Wallace, senior director of public policy for solar developer Sunrun. “That’s not to say we don’t have our own issues that we’re still trying to get modified in the bill, but I think it’s certainly better than prior versions.” Jamie Ratliff, a spokesperson for Eversource, said that while the utility supports continuing the state’s solar programs, their costs have risen dramatically over the last decade. Even with an annual budget of $85 million, she said, the costs would be compounded each year because the utilities would have to compensate new panel owners through long-term contracts. After seven years, she said, those costs would add up to roughly $595 million annually. “Any extension or expansion must include robust safeguards, such as maintaining competitive bidding processes to deliver the best price for the commercial projects selected, reducing compensation rates for residential projects, and maintaining clear budget caps for the programs,” Ratliff said in a statement. A spokesperson for United Illuminating declined to comment on the legislation. But in written testimony submitted on an earlier version of the bill in March, a lobbyist for the company similarly raised concerns about the costs of the programs. Steinberg accused both companies of spreading an “irresponsible narrative” that focused on six- and seven-figure sums spread out across many years. He said that other than installing a target budget, the bill wouldn’t change how program costs are calculated. “We’ve been using this same basic framework through the existing programs,” Steinberg said. “This is a totally new propaganda effort on their part. I think it’s part of the ‘Don’t blame us’ strategy that these utilities have adopted.” State Rep. Tracy Marra, R-Darien, a ranking member of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee, described the negotiations between the committee’s leadership as cordial but said that Republicans were unlikely to lend support for the final product when it comes up for a vote. “It’s not a route that we’re going to be throwing a lot of support on because it’s most likely going to be adding to the public benefits charge,” Marra said. A spokesperson for DEEP declined to comment on the legislation, citing the ongoing state of negotiations. ### From grid-scale to plug-in One potential late addition to the bill could come from state Rep. Jaime Foster, D-Ellington, who is pushing for language that would enact a moratorium on further large-scale solar developments in the town of East Windsor, home to the 120-megawatt Gravel Pit Solar project and several smaller arrays. Foster took Gov. Ned Lamont on a tour of the solar facilities within her district in early April, and she said in an interview Monday morning that she had a “tentative” agreement with the governor’s office on moratorium language. Steinberg confirmed the language was being discussed but said the moratorium would be limited to one year and would not apply to projects that have already been approved. Late in the day Monday, Foster said in a text message that**** the proposal “went south” and she was scrambling to include it in the final draft of the bill. William Herchel, chief executive of West Hartford solar developer Verogy, said he was lobbying lawmakers to ensure that any moratorium provision not be applied retroactively to projects that are under development. He said his company is currently involved in solar projects in Windsor and Ellington, adjacent to East Windsor. “It’s one thing if you just signed a lease a month ago,” Herchel said. “It’s another thing if you sign the lease, you started the interconnection process, and you actually have obtained a contract with [the utilities] through these state-run programs.” Asked for comment on Monday, Lamont spokeswoman Cathryn Vaulman said in a text message that “The administration continues to engage in productive conversations with lawmakers on HB 5340 as they work towards a solution that balances the state’s energy needs with local concerns in East Windsor.” The bill also includes a provision allowing electric customers to use plug-in solar panels with an output of up to 1,200 watts without the approval from their utility. If passed, Connecticut would join Utah and Virginia as one of the first states to eliminate regulatory barriers for plug-in solar. While the concept has attracted bipartisan support within the legislature, utility officials have raised concerns the devices could cause issues with anti-tampering devices installed on many meters. As a result,**** customers**** could end up getting charged for the excess power produced by the panels, utility officials warn. To address those concerns, the bill would require any plug-in solar devices be certified by a national product safety group. It also recommends regulators update state building codes to recognize the devices. Steinberg said on Monday that he’d also agreed to include new language taken from another bill put forward by Lamont that would create an statewide online platform to streamline the permitting process for installing residential solar panels. The idea has strong support from within the solar industry, as well as environmental groups. “As we’re looking to make the next generation of these solar programs even more cost-effective for ratepayers, one of the ways you do that is by finding ways to reduce these these costs and red tape so that we can build the projects cheaper,” said Wallace, of Sunrun. # Connecticut needs you now. Across the country, reporters and news organizations are challenged, dismissed, even targeted for doing their jobs. It’s happening to CT Mirror journalists, too. This year, for the first time, CT Mirror has needed to budget for security to protect our reporters at events and large-scale demonstrations where their physical safety was at risk, and even online where reporters have faced harassment. **That’s the environment we're operating in. And it’s exactly why local journalism is needed now.** CT Mirror reporters run toward the hard questions. They dig into budgets, contracts, and submit near-endless information requests to uncover stories that need telling. They sit through the long hearings. They follow the facts wherever they lead. Holding power to account isn’t a slogan here — it’s our mission. People like you, who read our stories, know that standing alongside our journalists as a member ensures the news Connecticut needs remains independent, local, and free to read. CT Mirror exists for one reason: to inform and strengthen a civically engaged public. When local journalism is strong, communities are stronger. Transparency improves. Accountability deepens. Democracy works better. If you believe Connecticut deserves local reporting that is fearless, fair, and accessible to all, **can you start a $15 monthly donation today**? Stand with the journalists who stand up for Connecticut and our democracy. Strengthen your community. Be a co-publisher of CT Mirror. Thank you.