YOU MAY HAVE HEARD that the Massachusetts House is attempting to pass a bill to continue our solar programs. If the House fails to act before the Thanksgiving break, a significant number of solar projects are expected to be delayed or may never be built because of the “net metering” cap.  The cap limits the amount of solar energy consumers can sell back to the utilities. The impact on our solar industry, which employs over 12,000 people, is uncertain, but it is unlikely to be good.

The public should be aware that if the caps aren’t lifted, the disruption in the solar market will be a manufactured crisis, not one determined by good policy. Throughout this year, Massachusetts policymakers and stakeholders have worked to find a rational, fair way to preserve our solar programs and lift the net metering cap, while revising the programs to recognize the rapidly declining costs of solar power.

The state Net Metering and Solar Task Force’s April report determined that our solar programs provide substantial benefits to Massachusetts customers by incentivizing a local source of renewable energy generation, obviating the need for costly new energy infrastructure, and bringing solar industry jobs to our state. The task force found that our net metering and solar incentives will net $2 in benefits for each $1 invested in solar for our state. That sounds like a program worth keeping.

Craft Josh

Last July, the Senate passed solar reform measures as part of a climate adaptation bill, calling for an increase in the net metering caps and allowing the Department of Public Utilities to adjust how solar installations on our rooftops and our landfills and in low-income housing projects would be compensated after a more careful analysis of solar’s costs and benefits. The expectation was that the House would follow suit, with Speaker Robert DeLeo calling for the House to put out solar legislation before Thanksgiving.

But now progress appears to be stalled, apparently because of opposition from the state’s electric utilities. At a hearing on solar legislation before the State Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, the state’s utilities stood more or less alone in opposition to legislative measures to continue our solar programs. Like utilities across the country, our investor-owned utilities seem more interested in delaying the shift away from large, fossil-based power plants to local renewable energy resources like solar.

As the Washington Post spelled out in March of this year, utilities view rooftop solar units as an “unexpected challenge to the utilities’ bottom line.” So while the utilities have cloaked their arguments for new pipeline infrastructure in the guise of sticking up for ratepayers, they don’t have much interest in a resource that may cut into their own future revenues. With close ties to the Gov. Charlie Baker’s office, the utilities seem content to sit on the sidelines and put up roadblocks, rather than work toward a real compromise.

We cannot delay further in lifting the cap on net metering. Time is of the essence because a federal tax credit for solar development, which pays one-third of the customer’s cost, expires at the end of 2016.  Without lifting the state cap and without the federal tax credit, Massachusetts companies and municipalities are being forced to abandon solar projects on landfills and on school roofs.  The Legislature may yet pass a temporary increase in the cap, but that won’t sustain our solar programs in the long-term. Consumers, investors, and developers need certainty, or the solar industry will move to other states that provide it.  There is still time to act this year and sustain our solar programs. But time is running out.

Josh Craft leads the Global Warming Solutions Project at the Environmental League of Massachusetts.

2 replies on “House manufactures a solar industry crisis”

  1. The utility companies are winning and the solar companies are losing. This isn’t just happening in Massachusetts, it’s happening all over the country. Arizona, Wisconsin, Hawaii have all seen their solar programs collapse. California is next with its Net Metering 2. 0 program with its proposed fees and reduced compensation to new solar customers that will be voted on by the CPUC in the next few weeks and once the California solar market collapses so too will the rest of the country. The solar industry acted to slowly, if the utilities are not stopped, it will be hasta la vista solar.

  2. There are good reasons why the cap was instituted in the first place. Unlimited and uncontrolled intermittent and variable power connected to the grid increases the overall cost, and creates grid instability. In the extreme, both brownouts and blackouts become inevitable.
    the present cap is a compromise to give wind and solar power a starting advantage, in the hope that renewable energy will serve as an alternative to fossil fuel. We have hit the limit. Wind and solar have failed as an alternative forcing policymakers to consider importing Canadian hydro power and Pennsylvania natural gas at huge expense to ratepayers.
    ISO-NE reports that demand for electricity is flat for the foreseeable future. The 12,000 people employed by the solar industry are an unnecessary burden on the ratepayers.
    At this stage the solar industry needs to demonstrate that they can earn their keep. Instead they are lobbying Beacon Hill for extending their advantage with more subsidies.
    It’s time to tell them to “Put up or Shut up”!

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