House-Senate divide remains on solar bill

The House and Senate recessed for the calendar year without passing legislation to raise the cap on solar power that can be sold back to the grid.
 
The Senate in July passed a bill to raise the cap to 1,600 megawatts statewide. And on Nov. 17, the day before the end of the formal legislative session, the House passed a bill that would raise the cap by 2 percent but would reduce the value of “net metering” credits once the 1,600-megawatt goal was met.
 
Although the Senate agreed with the House’s 2 percent cap increase, the two chambers remained far apart on the value of net metering credits.
 
Massachusetts is currently at approximately 949 megawatts of solar capacity.
 
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 stopping any project larger than one for a single-family home.
 
Net-metering allows utility customers to sell solar power back to the grid at the retail rate.
 
In June, local officials testified before the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy in favor of lifting the net-metering cap. 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 that is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2016.
 
Last session, the MMA supported compromise legislation that would lift 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.”
 
House and Senate leaders have agreed to meet during informal sessions – through the end of this year – to try to work out their differences.