Administration, Senate propose raising solar cap

Although state officials had expressed concerns about lifting the cap on the amount of solar power that can be sold back to the grid, last month the Baker administration responded to input from municipal officials and the environmental community and filed legislation to raise the so-called net metering cap by two percentage points.

The legislation would raise the statewide cap to 1,600 megawatts, nearly double the current cap of approximately 875 megawatts.

The legislation is similar to an amendment offered by Sen. Benjamin Downing and supported by Sen. Bruce Tarr, the minority leader, that was adopted by the full Senate on July 24 as part of a climate change preparedness bill sponsored by Sen. Marc Pacheco.

State law requires utilities to purchase 5 percent of their power from renewable sources, but the law allows them to reject projects beyond this level, known as the “net-metering cap.”

National Grid, for example, is at 5 percent, so it is not accepting interconnection applications for additional large solar projects in its service area, which covers 171 communities. This means that single-phase systems above 10 kilowatts and three-phase systems above 25 kilowatts cannot be built, effectively eliminating any project larger than one for a single-family home.

The Senate bill would eliminate the service-area requirements and replace the percentage cap with a total statewide cap of 1,600 megawatts.

Net-metering allows utility customers to sell solar power back to the grid at the retail rate.

In June, local officials testified in favor of lifting the net-metering cap before the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. In written testimony, the MMA urged the committee to “build on past achievements” and lift the cap so municipal projects could move forward and take advantage of a 30 percent federal tax credit set to expire on Dec. 31, 2016.

Amesbury Mayor Ken Gray asked the committee to vote to lift the cap immediately so a 9-megawatt solar array on a capped landfill in his community can move forward.

Easton Town Administrator David Colton told the committee that his town has an agreement in place for a facility that cannot be built due to the cap being reached in the National Grid territory. The facility is expected to generate approximately $2 million in new revenue for the town over the next 20 years, or $100,000 per year that does not have to come from property taxes or fees.

Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton told committee members that the administration seeks a mechanism to ensure that ratepayers without access to solar projects do not pay disproportionately for maintenance of the electrical grid.

Last session, the MMA supported compromise legislation that would have lifted the net-metering cap, but included a minimum charge on bills, proposed by utilities, to allow for solar customers to contribute to the cost of maintaining the grid. The bill did not pass, however, and a Net-Metering Task Force was created instead to look at the long-term feasibility of solar power and to raise the cap slightly.

In January, MMA members unanimously adopted a resolution asking the governor and Legislature to “approve lifting the public net-metering cap and ensure the continuation of solar renewable energy credits to allow municipal renewable energy projects to advance, giving cities and towns the capacity to continue to build a statewide renewable energy infrastructure that is among the strongest in the nation.”