Governor signs bill raising solar ‘net-metering’ caps

The governor today signed a bill that would raise the so-called net metering cap on solar projects by 3 percent, which would allow many projects to move forward after months of being stalled in some service areas.

The 3 percent increase would make the cap 8 percent on public projects and 7 percent for private projects.

The House passed the bill on April 6, and the Senate did the same the next day.

The new law keeps the rate at which municipalities can sell solar energy back to the grid – the net metering rate – at the retail rate, but reduces the value of net metering credits for most other types of solar projects by 40 percent.

The law allows the Department of Public Utilities to consider proposals from utilities that would impose a minimum bill charge on customers.

The Department of Energy Resources is charged with developing a statewide solar incentive program to encourage the continued development of solar energy generation by residential, commercial, governmental and industrial electricity customers throughout the Commonwealth.

A conference committee was named last Nov. 18 to work out differences between solar bills passed earlier by the House and Senate, both of which would have raised the net metering cap by 2 percent.

In testimony, the MMA reiterated strong support for lifting the net metering cap on public projects to allow municipal solar projects to go forward, but expressed concerns about the proposed changes to the rate of the net metering credit, which would have made projects more costly and less feasible for communities.

The Commonwealth has far exceeded its original solar goal of 250 megawatts by 2017, established in the 2008 Green Communities Act, and is well on its way to meeting its goal of 1600 megawatts by 2020. There are now 1058 megawatts of solar in the Commonwealth, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has ranked Massachusetts first in the nation in energy efficiency.

In February, the Department of Energy Resources announced to solar stakeholders that the Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) II solar incentive program has reached its cap for projects over 25 kilowatts. The SREC program hit its capacity sooner than many had expected and created another obstacle to solar financing.