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The Internal Revenue Service issued a private letter ruling this week to an individual owner of solar panels installed in an off-site net-metered community solar garden.  In the Ruling, the Service confirmed the individual’s eligibility to claim the residential income tax credit for 30 percent of qualified solar electric property expenditures pursuant to Section 25D of the Internal Revenue Code.

The Ruling is significant in several respects:

  1. it confirms that an individual who owns only some of the solar panels and other property comprising a community solar garden may claim the credit,
  2. it appears not to require direct tracking of the electricity produced by the taxpayer’s solar panels and, instead, permits allocation of the aggregate amount of electricity produced by the array based on the number of panels owned by the taxpayer, and
  3. it does not require the taxpayer to contractually agree with the utility that the taxpayer owns the electricity produced by the taxpayer’s panels until drawn from the grid at his residence.
    Continue Reading IRS Opens Door for Community Solar Investors to Qualify for Federal Tax Credits

On Saturday, June 13, Governor Dayton signed the 2015 Jobs and Energy Bill into Law.  Our prior coverage of this bill can be found here and here.  The following amendments were made after the Governor’s veto:

  • New definitions for “propane,” “propane storage facility,” and “synthetic gas.”
  • New net metering provision that applies to

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As a follow up to our prior coverage, Governor Dayton vetoed the jobs and energy bill that passed in the final few minutes of the 2015 regular legislative session.  Governor Dayton’s veto letter can be found here.

After significant negotiations, the legislature finally posted a revised version of the legislation in its 2015 1st…

In a literal sprint to the finish, the Minnesota legislature passed a bill, which included energy policy provisions as part of a Senate Floor Amendment, just seconds before the State constitutional deadline. Pertinent energy policy provisions were included in Article 3 of that amendment and are briefly summarized below:

  • If the MN PUC

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Hi there, this is Jon Wellinghoff, former FERC chair and current Stoel Rives partner. I’m pleased to announce that effective today I have joined the Stoel Rives Renewable + Law blogger team. We thought it would be useful to share with you blog readers some of my thinking and writing on the topic of energy…

Within days of its open on December 12, 2014, Xcel Energy’s Minnesota Community Solar Garden (CSG) Program had well over 300 MW worth of CSG applications submitted and by this writing nearly 430 MW.  The rush of significant application creates a question of “who’s in line first?”  That was the question before the Minnesota Public…

Xcel announced this morning that it plans to open its Community Solar Garden program next Friday, December 12, 2014 at 9:00 AM CST. In its filing, the company attempts to clarify the “first-ready, first-served” application process it plans to follow. The company explains that Garden operators can view a time stamp marking when the application…