On July 31, the Massachusetts Legislature passed H.4857, An Act to Advance Clean Energy.” The bill, released late on July 30, was the result of a compromise between the Senate’s broad, omnibus bill passed in early June and the House’s more modest proposals, passed piecemeal in mid-July. Among other things, the bill:
Proponents of the Clean Peak Standard (“CPS”) in Massachusetts may see its entry into the New England markets sooner rather than later, either through the adoption of legislation prior to the Legislature’s July 31 recess date, or by the promulgation of regulations under the Department of Energy Resources’ (DOER) existing authority. In an energy storage forum on May 30, DOER launched an informal pre-rulemaking process intended to facilitate the adoption of CPS regulations within the Commonwealth. … More
This afternoon, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) released the much-anticipated results of the competitive procurement that will set the base compensation rates for the SMART program. The base compensation rates range from $0.17 in the NSTAR and Nantucket Electric territories to about $0.14 in WMECO. In Massachusetts Electric territory, the non-Nantucket territory served under the National Grid umbrella, the base compensation rate is about $0.16. A DOER summary table of the procurement is below. … More
Stakeholders have been following the development of “SMART” as a successor to the SREC program in Massachusetts for more than a year. (See our previous posts on the development process here, here, and here.) As it stands, SMART reflects a determined effort by the Department of Energy Resources (“DOER”) to craft a program that balances multiple interests and sets a sustainable path for solar development in Massachusetts. … More
Initiative petition proponents filed with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office earlier this week 28 proposed initiative petitions that, if certified by the AG and endorsed by the requisite number of registered voters, could appear on the November 2018 ballot. (See this post for more details on the ballot initiative process.) Interested parties have until Friday, August 11 to (1) submit memoranda setting forth why the AG should or should not certify the measure,… More
On June 30, 2017, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (“DOER”) announced an “aspirational” target for Massachusetts’ utilities to procure 200 MWh of energy storage by January 1, 2020. While solar targets are typically expressed in MW, the capabilities of energy storage facilities are often measured both in terms of power (MW) and energy (MWh), reflecting the multiple applications for which energy storage can be used. … More
On June 5, 2017, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (“DOER”) filed much anticipated emergency regulations (225 CMR 20.00) to govern, at least the DOER’s part of its proposed Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (“SMART”) program. The regulations build on a proposal released January 31, 2017 (discussed previously, here) and represent the Baker administration’s first formal step in following through on the legislature’s 2016 mandate to DOER in An Act Relative to Solar Energy commanding that it develop a new statewide solar incentive program.… More
For the purposes of qualifying for net metering credits, section 138 of M.G.L. c. 164 defines a “Solar Net Metering Facility” as “a facility for the production of electrical energy that uses sunlight to generate electricity and is interconnected to a Distribution Company.” The statute and accompanying regulations are silent regarding the co-location of energy storage equipment with such a qualifying Solar Net Metering Facility.
National Grid has interpreted this silence to be a total prohibition on solar + storage for net metering facilities.… More
Earlier this week, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) finalized the details of the Solar Carve-out II extension, which seeks to facilitate the transition between that program and DOER’s proposed Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) program. The extension program helps bridge the gap between the Solar Carve-out II incentive program, which went into effect in April 2014 and was designed to support the market until 1,600 MW of PV capacity had been installed,… More
On January 31, 2017, DOER Commissioner Judith Judson and Mike Judge, Director of the Renewable and Alternative Energy Division at DOER, presented the agency’s final proposal for design of its successor to the successful Solar Carve-out and Solar Carve-out II programs in a 3-hour public meeting.
It’s called SMART and lest you doubt that it is, DOER included the following equation in its presentation to prove it:
(Helpfully,… More