Maine's Senate approved legislation that seeks to expand access to large-scale community solar and undo a regulatory order that charges solar panel owners for their gross output, including power that never enters the electric grid. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives for consideration and, if passed, is destined to be vetoed by the governor, like previous similar legislation.
The upper chamber of the Maine legislature voted 28-5 on March 1 in favor of L.D. 1444, which would raise the number of people who can take part in a community solar power project from 9 to 50 and overturn a rule that allows utilities to charge solar producers under net metering for gross output, or electricity they both produce and use on site. The bill would also prevent the Public Utilities Commission from changing solar policy until lawmakers can address it during the next legislative session.
The bill seeks to reverse new net metering rules for solar photovoltaic, or PV, systems the PUC issued in March 2017. The rules include a 10% annual step-down of net energy billing from full compensation over 10 years for new customers. Starting May 1 and every year thereafter until the net metering rates reach zero, the newly reduced annual rates are locked in for 15 years, based on the gross output for both electricity used at the customer site and excess generation exported to the grid.
The pro-renewable Conservation Law Foundation applauded the vote to undo the PUC's solar policies.
"The PUC has tried to gut solar energy across our state by charging families and businesses for the energy they generate and use at home," said CLF attorney Emily Green. "Today, the Maine Senate stepped away from those bad policies, moving instead towards policy that creates jobs, lowers our energy bills, and makes local clean energy available to everyone."
Maine regulators have been seeking to replace or reduce net metering since a policy change was triggered in 2015 when net metering reached 1% of the peak loads of utilities within the state. Utilities Central Maine Power Co. and Emera Maine asserted that the growing share of distributed solar generation was shifting the financial burden of maintaining transmission to other consumers.
Since then, Maine lawmakers passed legislation twice in 2016 and again in June 2017 to adjust PUC regulations for compensating solar PV by either replacing net metering with a "pay for production" rate while grandfathering in existing solar users or by leaving it up to the commission to decide the gradual credit reduction of retail rates on the transmission and distribution portion of electricity bills. Each time, Republican Gov. Paul LePage, a stern critic of solar power, vetoed the bills and called for a faster three-year phase-out of net metering instead.
Dylan Voorhees, a clean energy project director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, tweeted that the 2017 version of the bill passed in the House with 30 Republican voters, close to half of the caucus. "This year's bill is more narrowly crafted (by Republicans)," he said. "How many will side with consumers, solar jobs, and lower municipal energy costs this year? How many will stick when [LePage's inevitable] veto comes?"
Proponents would require a two-thirds majority in both houses to override the governor's veto.
Central Maine Power is a subsidiary of Avangrid Inc. Emera Maine is a subsidiary of Emera Inc.
