The community solar program in California is off to a slow start. The reasons for this slow start were discussed at a solar developer’s forum held by the state’s major utilities and policymakers on April 5, 2017.

Background on Community Solar in California

California’s community solar program is formally known as the Enhanced Community Renewables (“ECR”) program. The ECR program is part of the larger Green Tariff Shared Renewables (“GTSR”) program. The GTSR program was signed into law in 2013, and final program rules were adopted in May 2016. Together, these programs require the California investor-owned utilities (“IOUs”) to procure 600 megawatts (“MW”) of new renewable energy.

Under the ECR component of the program, customers can enter into agreements directly with third party project developers to purchase new clean energy generated by a project located in their community. ECR projects are limited to sizes between 500 kW and 20 MW.

As we recently reported, the IOUs held their first request for offer (“RFO”) last fall, which sought to award power purchase agreements (“PPAs”) for 170 MW of new renewable energy from ECR projects. However, very few bids were submitted in the solicitation, and ultimately no PPAs were awarded. The developer forum was intended to discuss some of the reasons for this lackluster performance.
Continue Reading California Community Solar Forum Points to Need for Reforms

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) approved several major changes to Xcel Energy’s Community Solar Garden (CSG) program yesterday, while also voting to maintain other aspects of the CSG program. Mike Hughlett of the Star Tribune has this report. The MPUC’s decisions are summarized below:

Bill Credit Rate

  • Declined to modify the Applicable Retail

Maine appears poised to replace its net-energy metering (NEM) program with new legislation that is projected to increase the state’s solar photovoltaics (PV) penetration by over 12 times the current installed capacity by 2022. The legislation has the support of a broad coalition of consumer advocates, utilities, solar installers and environmental advocates, by contrast to