Maine may design a distribution system operator to advance distributed energy resources Maine has hired a consulting firm to evaluate whether forming a distribution system operator could speed deployment of distributed energy resources and support other state goals. Consultants are reviewing how the approach is used in five other countries.

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Maine has hired the consulting firm Strategen to evaluate whether a distribution system operator (DSO) could be designed to achieve growth in distributed energy resources and help the state meet other goals: lower electricity costs, improved electric system reliability, and the state’s overall climate goals.

The state law calling for the study defines roles for a DSO including overseeing integrated system planning, operating the state’s electric grids, and administering a market for distributed energy resources (DERs).

Speaking on a webinar about the study, Strategen Advisor Matthew McDonnell said the firm will evaluate the potential to reduce customers’ electric bills by first considering the “base case” for the state of Maine—that is, investment priorities that have already been established through integrated resource planning or other means. The firm will then “look at how a differentiation from that base case to more of a high DER state, as facilitated by a prospective DSO, can enable some potential cost savings going forward through load flexibility and other opportunities.”

Responding to a question about distributed storage, McDonnell added “certainly we’re thinking about distributed energy storage and its use either as a standalone asset or in conjunction with distributed solar or other energy resources.”

Standalone distributed solar was not mentioned on the webinar, which was hosted by the Maine Governor’s energy office.

The energy office said in a statement that no jurisdiction in the U.S. now has a DSO. McDonnell said Strategen is “looking to draw learnings” from similar distribution network operator approaches used in parts of the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and Ontario, Canada.

If Strategen’s initial study concludes that a DSO can be designed to help achieve the state’s objectives, and the Governor’s energy office agrees with that conclusion, Strategen will conduct a second part of the study to develop a DSO design proposal that identifies the scope and characteristics of a DSO.

A DSO design “may not include the acquisition or ownership of any transmission and distribution utility assets,” the state law says. The law calls on the Maine governor’s energy office to ensure opportunities for stakeholder engagement throughout the study process.

The Strategen team includes consultants Lorenzo Kristov, who previously worked for California’s grid operator CAISO, and Mark Patterson, principal at Energy Catalyst in Australia.

Strategen expects the draft of its initial study to be released in late summer. If a second part of the study is authorized, that part is expected to be completed by year-end.

The nonprofit Clean Coalition, based in California, has advocated for the formation of distribution system operators in that state.

The U.S. power grid in use today was built in the 1960s and 70s and is hard pressed to handle the extreme weather events caused by climate change, let alone the renewable energy needed to meet energy goals.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 70% of transmission lines are over 25 years old and approaching the end of their typical lifecycle. Grid upgrades that deploy modern grid technologies are sorely needed, and federal funding is available through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) program, which recently closed applications for up to $2.7 billion in DOE grant funding under a second round.

Grid modernization has been underway in some states more than others, and the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center recently released The 50 States of Grid Modernization: Q1 2024 Quarterly Report, which looks at legislative and regulatory action related to smart grid and advanced metering infrastructure, utility business model reform, regulatory reform, utility rate reform, energy storage, microgrids, and demand response.

In Q1 2024, according to the report, 49 states plus DC and Puerto Rico took a total of 567 policy and deployment actions, the most common related to policies (133), financial incentives (108), and utility business model and rate reform (93).

Five top policy developments

Maryland: Lawmakers passed the Distributed Renewable Integration and Vehicle Electrification (DRIVE) Act in Maryland that directs the Public Service Commission to develop a program for utilities to establish virtual power plant (VPP) pilots to compensate owners and aggregators of distributed energy resources for distribution system support services.

Massachusetts: Eversource, National Grid and Unitil filed final electric sector modernization plans in January 2024. The plans include a variety of programs and investments, such as VPP programs, advanced distribution management system and distributed energy resource management system investments, resilience upgrades, heat pump integration, and non-wires alternative

Connecticut: The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) issued a set guidelines for utilities’ advanced metering infrastructure plans, including a directive to include advanced time-of-use rates and to use Green Button Connect functionality. Later in the quarter, PURA filed a straw proposal on performance incentive mechanisms (PIMs), which includes four PIMs based on non-wires solutions, equitable reliability, distributed energy resource interconnection, and avoided service terminations.

Colorado: The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved guidelines and directives for VPP implementation in Xcel Energy’s service territory.

Maine: The Governor’s Energy Office in Maine released its final long-duration energy storage (LDES) study that identifies policy considerations and actions for the state to support LDES. The PUC also released a study that examines utility control or ownership of energy storage, finding that utility ownership of storage should only be allowed under certain circumstances.

Top trends

Grid-enhancing technologies can boost the use of any existing transmission system, according to a study by The Brattle Group, which looked specifically at advanced power flow control, topology optimization and dynamic line ratings. The NC State report said use of grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) is a notable trend and noted the following actions:

• Virginia lawmakers enacted a bill requiring utility integrated resource plans to include a comprehensive assessment of the application of GETs and advanced conductors. In
• Maine legislators enacted a bill requiring the PUC to conduct a review of available GETs that large investor-owned utilities may use to reduce investment needs in grid infrastructure.
• Minnesota lawmakers introduced bills requiring utilities to file plans regarding the implementation of GETs to prevent grid congestion at the transmission level.
• New York legislators introduced bills that would allow the Department of Public Service to approve requests from distribution companies to develop GETs.

Other states considering legislation initiating studies on GETs include Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Virtual power plants

VPPs give grid operators a utility-grade alternative to new generation and system buildout by automating efficiency, capacity support and offering non-wire alternatives, according to Jigar Shah, director of the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office. “By deploying grid assets more efficiently, an aggregation of distributed resources lowers the cost of power for everybody, especially VPP participants,” Shah said in an article in pv magazine USA.

According to the NC State report, a state policymakers and regulators are taking steps to develop frameworks for VPPs in their states:

• Pennsylvania regulators issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking seeking input on VPPs as a potential resource for the state.
• Maryland lawmakers passed a bill directing the Public Service Commission to develop a program for utilities to establish VPP pilots, with each investor-owned utility required to propose a pilot or temporary tariff by July 1, 2025.
• Colorado PUC issued a decision outlining rules for VPP pilots and acquisition.
• California and Hawaii regulators are also advancing expansive programs to promote VPPs.

Microgrids

Microgrids are groups of distributed energy resources, such as solar modules on a home, connected to a battery system, that can disconnect from the grid and operate independently during a power outage. The U.S. Department of Energy has a vision that 30% to 50% of electricity generation will come from distributed resources by 2035, with microgrids playing a key role in the transition.

The NC State report found that a growing number of states are evaluating the potential for microgrids to provide resilience or other benefits in their states.

• Colorado Energy Office is currently developing a microgrid roadmap, which will examine how microgrids can improve grid resilience and reliability in the state.
• New Hampshire lawmakers recently passed a bill requiring the state’s Department of Energy to study the potential benefits, risks and other factors of developing a microgrid framework.
• Rhode Island PUC issued request for proposal for a study related to microgrid program design.
• Puerto Rico Energy is examining revisions to its existing microgrid revisions.
• Arizona regulators issued a decision prohibiting Arizona Public Service from providing microgrid services.

Lawmakers in California, Iowa, New Jersey, and New York also considered legislation related to microgrid studies during the quarter.

Sunnova Adaptive Home to feature Lumin Smart Panel The Lumin app lets homeowners monitor their energy use, create on- and off-grid circuit management schedules and automate time-of-use rate avoidance.

Maine blueberry grower goes solar ReVision Energy is the installer and REC Solar the investor of the project that is expected to generate 8.5 GWh of clean energy in the first year of operation, offsetting an estimated 8 million pounds of carbon every year, or the equivalent of planting 60,735 trees.

Solar power purchase agreement prices rise 15% year-over-year PPA pricing rose in some markets like California and declined in others, including Texas, said a report from LevelTen Energy.

PV commissioning times up by 6 months over past 20 years, claim scientists Scientists in Switzerland used project-level data from BloombergNEF to analyze completion times of renewable energy projects across 48 countries.They have found that average commissioning times have increased over the past two decades for all clean energy technologies.

Arizona proposes solar power export tax Solar assets that export electricity out of the state would be taxed 12.5% per every dollar of revenue made from the sale of electricity.

Canadian startup offers 35%-efficient indoor perovskite PV modules Canada’s Solaires Enterprises says its indoor perovskite modules are suitable for powering a range of electronic devices, such as wireless keyboards, smart door locks, electronic shelf labels, and sensors.

Wyman’s, a 150-year old grower of wild blueberries, has partnered with ReVision Energy and REC Solar to install more than 17,000 solar modules on 35 acres of non-productive land in Maine. Wyman’s owns 55,000 acres of land in Maine and is a top-selling brand of frozen fruit in the U.S., according to Nielsen data. 

ReVision Energy is installing the project, which will have both Hanwha Q Peak Duo 400 W and REC380 solar modules. It is expected to generate 8.5 GWh of clean energy in the first year of operation, offsetting an estimated 8 million pounds of carbon every year, or the equivalent carbon sequestration of planting 60,735 trees.

This project is designed to offset 73% of Wyman’s energy use through net energy billing credits, meaning that the Maine utility, Versant Power, will give Wyman’s credit against its electric bill for every kilowatt hour generated. REC is the investor and owner of the solar plant, which Wyman’s will have a right to purchase after 20 years.

“For 150 years, we’ve been driven by the desire to produce healthy food, provide gainful employment, and protect natural resources,” said Tony Shurman, Wyman’s president and chief executive officer.

Wild blueberries took root in Maine more than 10,000 years ago and Maine is the only state in the U.S. where wild blueberries are commercially grown in abundance. These berries grow in their natural ecosystem, so there’s no artificial breeding or genetic modifications, and the plants are connected by an underground root system called rhizomes.

Wyman’s is not the first project to bring solar power to blueberry production. Solar was part of a pilot program at the University of Maine. The 4.2 MW solar project was built on a 10-acre blueberry farm. The project was developed by BlueWave, which worked with CS Energy, the EPC partner, and Navisun, the owner operator, and University of Maine, the research partner, to study solar construction techniques as well as ways of harvesting blueberries that are grown among solar panels.

Wyman’s is also partnering with the University of Maine on a research study that is  exploring how conditions caused by climate change, such as heat, drought, erratic rainfall patterns, and early frosts, impact production.

“The decision to go solar fits squarely with our ethos to do the right thing and seek a better way. Being powered by the sun is an important opportunity to ensure Wyman’s continues to provide healthy fruit for another 150 years and beyond,” said Shurman.

Maryland YMCA to cut energy costs with rooftop solar Secure Solar Futures installed a 222 kW solar array on a Maryland YMCA, which is expected to save about $100,000 on electricity bills.

California to grant $52 million for vehicle-to-grid home energy stations Smart home energy company Dcbel was awarded grant money for the deployment of EV charge-controlling devices that can respond to dynamic grid price signals.

Plus Power to construct 175 MW / 350 MWh energy storage in Maine The Cross Town project will add 175 MW of storage to New England’s grid while helping to ensure Maine meets its 2030 and 2050 decarbonization goals.

Rain insufficient for removing tree pollen from solar panels  An analysis by NREL in North Carolina reveals that various types of tree pollen can reduce solar panel efficiency by over 15%. Unlike the immediate improvements assumed to follow heavy rain, recovery of performance post-pollen season is gradual. Manual cleaning post-rain can boost performance by 5% to 11%.

EcoFlow battery generator can back up a house for up to a month  The Delta Pro Ultra, shown this week at CES 2024, works with multiple energy sources for whole-home backup, solar power storage and off-grid use.

Nautilus Solar acquires 16 community solar projects in Illinois  The community solar specialist expands its footprint into the Midwest with the acquisition of this 75.6 MW portfolio.  

Battery energy storage system (BESS) developer Plus Power LLC is constructing Cross Town, the 350 MWh facility located at Gorham Industrial Park in Gorham, Maine, just outside of Portland.

The project is intended to enhance the New England grid, adding 175 MW of storage and stimulating a faster and more extensive integration of renewable energy into the six regional states. Plus Power also states that Cross Town will help Maine meet its decarbonization goals of generating 80% of its electricity from renewables by 2030, followed by 100% by 2050.

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, as of September 2023, New England had about 330 MW of operational BESS, primarily comprised of small projects with up to 5 MW of storage. However, completing the Cross Town project pushes the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE) a step closer to ensuring the region meets its reliability needs.

According to ISO-NE, these requirements are centered around ensuring the continuous build-out of transmission infrastructure to sustain power system reliability through scaling an efficient wholesale electricity marketplace.

ISO-NE’s Forward Capacity Market is a yearly auction that verifies that the New England power system will have enough electricity resources to meet future demands. It focuses on promoting economic investment in crucial supply and demand capacity resources needed three years in advance. Each year, suppliers compete to obtain a capacity supply obligation (CSO) for upcoming projects. Those who clear the auction, receive capacity payments in exchange for a commitment to provide resources when called upon.

In 2021, Cross Town cleared the ISO-NE Forward Capacity Market, securing a seven-year CSO to provide energy storage for ISO-NE. The site is located just outside of a flood plain, and Plus Power received a permit from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) stating that the project met applicable standards regarding the reduction of negative impacts on stormwater management, groundwater protection, infrastructure, wildlife and fisheries, noise, and unusual natural areas.

With approval from the Town of Gorham, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, MDEP, a National Resources Protection Act permit, among others, Plus Power began constructing Cross Town in Fall 2023. The site is expected to start commercial operation in Fall 2025.

This project is part of Plus Power’s growing portfolio of utility-scale lithium-ion BESS across 25 states and Canada. The company says it has 10 GW of interconnection capacity in transmission interconnection queues.

Moscow, Maine, enacted a ban on commercial solar power farms. In a December 2023 vote, the town approved the “Solar Farm Ordinance,” which prohibits all solar power systems greater than 40 kW. The ordinance’s key section, shared with pv magazine USA by Town Hall officials, states:

Section 2. Purpose: The purpose of this Ordinance is to prohibit all commercial Solar Farms within the Town of Moscow.

• No commercial Solar Farms are allowed in the Town of Moscow.

• Residential Solar Systems of 40 kW or less are exempt from this ordinance.

• Residential Solar Systems existing prior to the date of this ordinance are grandfathered and exempt from this ordinance.

The ordinance does not specify whether existing commercial solar projects are grandfathered and exempt.

According to Jake Freudberg’s report in Maine’s Morning Sentinel, the vote had 16 in favor of the ban and four against. Freudberg spoke with First Selectman Donald Beane, a dissenting voter, who commented, “We had legal opinions from our lawyer and [the] Maine Municipal [Association] saying it wouldn’t hold up.”

Freudberg interviewed Dee Laweryson, who remarked, “They take up too much space,” and Joan Peterson, who called the farms an “eyesore” and raised questions like, “What’s going to leak into the ground?”

Nationwide, there is a growing trend of legislation that limits solar development. Research indicates that the siting of solar power is a key factor in public acceptance, with more restrictive zoning laws increasing across the nation. Generally, rooftop solar is highly regarded across various political ideologies.

However, it’s important to note that some opposition to solar energy is strongly influenced by political partisanship and funding from the fossil fuel industry. For example, a claim promoted by Susan Ralston’s group, ‘Citizens for Responsible Solar,’ suggests that heavy metals might leach from solar panels into the soil and potentially into water sources. This claim has been debunked as a falsehood.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), by the end of 2022, Maine had installed 948 MW of solar capacity, contributing to 9.18% of its electricity generation from solar sources. SEIA projects a substantial growth in the state’s solar capacity, expecting it to more than double within the next five years with an additional 1.1 GW.

Oscilla Power, a wave energy conversion technology developer founded in 2009 in Seattle, announced it has deployed a prototype of its Triton wave energy converter device in partnership with the Maine Maritime Academy and the University of Maine. The prototype is a 1/6 scale version of its 1 MW wave energy device. 

The goal of the pilot project deployment is to confirm the design and performance of the Triton wave energy converter. A full-scale device is planned for 2024. 

Triton is designed on a three-tendon architecture that enables the device to capture all degrees of freedom in a wave (heave, pitch, surge, roll, and yaw.) The device holds a multi-mode point absorber that consists of a geometrically optimized surface float connected to a ring-shaped, vertically asymmetric heave plate by three taut, flexible tendons. This unique architecture leads to greater average annual energy production and increased energy capture over a wide range of ocean conditions. 

The device uses flexible tendons to connect the float to the reaction ring. This allows the use of simpler and lower-cost installation strategies than other wave energy devices, said Oscilla.  

The Triton will be towed to deployment sites with the heave plate hard-mated to the bottom of the surface float. After mooring the surface float, the system is lowered to the deployment depth using temporary onboard winches. The winches are employed in reverse for heave plate recovery. 

These self-deployment and self-recovery functions remove the need for specialized vessels or heavy lift equipment during installation and recovery operations, said Oscilla. Only a regular tug boat is required to tow the system and supply hydraulic power for winch operations. 

Due to the unique wave conditions in the Castine Harbor testing area, the 1/6 scaled prototype unit will operate in the same manner as a full-scale unit during this 12-week test, said Oscilla. Winter wave conditions in Castine Harbor are approximately 1/6 the size of waves experienced on the U.S. west coast, providing a useful test scenario for the full-scale units. 

A goal of the testing is demonstration of the ability of Triton to withstand extreme weather events and harsh wave events. The device has a unique feature where it can submerge beneath the water to protect itself from damage.  

The testing will also be used to enable Oscilla to accurately predict the power that the full-scale system will generate in different wave conditions. 

“While we have excellent design and computer-driven simulations, there is no substitute for running the unit through its paces in a real operating environment,” said Tim Mundon, chief technology officer for Oscilla Power. “Thanks to the partnership with Maine Maritime Academy and the University of Maine, we’re able to complete this testing to validate our assumptions and numerical models to ensure our commercial production unit will perform as designed.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office has supported the company throughout its history with research grants. Ocean wave power is explored for its potential to pair with other intermittent renewables like solar and wind. DOE representatives were on-site during the launch of the prototype model.

“Marine energy technologies have tremendous promise to provide clean, reliable power to remote and coastal communities as well as for offshore work,” said Jennifer Garson, director, U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office.

Solestial wins NASA contract to develop solar blanket wings for spacecraft The company received nearly $1 million to develop ultrathin PV for the next generation for space infrastructure.

U.S. solar electricity generation to surpass hydropower in 2024 The Energy Information Administration forecasts solar will generate 14% more electricity than hydropower in 2024.

Ascent Solar announces 17.55% efficiency for CIGS tech Ascent Solar, a US-based manufacturer, has achieved an efficiency of 17.55% for its copper, indium, gallium and selenide (CIGS) technology. It says it plans to release a new CIGS solar module with this efficiency rating soon.

China expected to dominate solar manufacturing through 2026 A Wood Mackenzie report forecasts that China will hold more than 80% of poly, wafer, cell and module manufacturing capacity for the next three years.

BYD unveils new agrivoltaics module  Chinese module maker BYD is producing a new bifacial monocrystalline module at its manufacturing facility in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The module has a power output of up to 355 W and a conversion efficiency of 16.33%.

Maine residents vote on fate of two utilities The ballot question failed to pass, with voters skeptical that a new power company governed by an elected board would be an improvement over existing for-profit utilities.

In yesterday’s election in Maine, voters had the opportunity to revoke the licenses of the state’s two for-profit, investor-owned utilities. The bill failed to pass, with 69.4% voting against dissolving the utilities.

If passed, the vote would have essentially ceased operations of the utilities and launch Pine Tree Power, a new non-profit utility. The two utilities in question serve just over 800,000 residents combined in a state with a population of 1.3 million.

The two utilities are Central Maine Power and Versant Power, both known for poor customer service and “the worst reliability with our electric grid,” according to Al Cleveland, campaign manager for the group in favor of Pine Tree Power.

Proponents of Pine Tree Power object to the two utilities being owned by “faraway corporations” and they accuse them of “raising rates, threatening our energy security, allowing countless outages…”

Central Maine Power Company (CMP) is the larger of the two for-profit utilities. It operates approximately 23,500 miles of distribution lines and 2,900 miles of transmission lines, serving about 646,000 customers in 346 Maine communities. The utility is owned by Avangrid, a Spanish multinational corporation that owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities in New York and New England. It is part of the Iberdrola Group, a Spanish company.

Versant Power was formed after the merger of Bangor Hydro Electric and Maine Public Service in 2014, then called Emera Maine. Versant is now owned by Enmax, an energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. Versant has 6,300 miles of distribution lines and 1,265 miles of transmission, and serves approximately 165,000 Maine customers.

Among the many complaints about the utilities are rate hikes and having the money go elsewhere. In July, for example, the City of Calgary, Versant’s owner, announced the city government would be getting an $82 million 2022 dividend payment from Versant. Shortly thereafter, the utility hiked distribution rates 14%, then announced another rate hike of 12.5% planned for January 2024, according to Pine Tree Power. CMP hiked distribution rates 20% in June, while also sending out disconnection notices to 10% of its customers, Pine Tree contends.

CMP was ranked last in the nation for business customer satisfaction among utilities surveyed in a 2022 J.D. Power study. Versant was not included in the study due to its small size. The study noted that some of CMP’s poor customer service issues include the most power outages of any state, the second longest period with no power, and high electric rates.

While this is the first time the question has been put to voters, it is not the first attempt to vote the utilities out. In 2021 the Maine legislature wanted to put the Pine Tree Power question to vote, but it was vetoed by Governor Mills. Instead, the organization backing Pine Tree Power launched a referendum effort and submitted enough signatures to get the question on the ballot. In anticipation, CMP’s parent company Avangrid reportedly invested $7 million to launch an opposition group called Maine Affordable Energy.

Governor Mills said she opposes Pine Tree Power due to the risks involved. She thinks it may be too costly and that there’s too much uncertainty as to what electric rates would be, and she questions the expertise of the proposed board. She also shared doubts that it will move the state forward on its progress in clean, renewable energy.

A report prepared by London Economics International for the Maine Public Utilities Commission found that the initial startup would be costly, but would eventually result in strong savings for Maine residents. The report estimated that the startup could cost ratepayers as much as $118 million in the first ten years, but then they could save as much as $236 million over a 30-year period as the new non-profit utility took advantage of tax-exempt and low-interest loands.

The bill is supported by climate activist Bill McKibben, Republican Senator Rick Bennett, Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, along with the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council of Maine.

This article was updated on Nov. 8 to reflect the election results.

Form Energy, a manufacturer of a 100-hour iron-air battery, believes that if New England adopts a ‘fossil-free by 2050’ policy, their energy storage system could replace a massive 111.4 GW of solar capacity and circumvent the need for 80.3 GW of less than 10-hour lithium-ion energy storage. The company further contends that its batteries are well-suited to address the decreased productivity of offshore wind during winter lulls, effectively adding 14.4 GW of offshore wind capacity and helping phase out 15.4 GW of fossil fuel dependence.

The product is touted for its cost benefits, delivering capacity at an approximate $20/kWh – a stark contrast to the $176/kWh of a 6-hour lithium-ion solution (one of many storage products the document modeled). This value proposition is detailed in their recent white paper, “Clean, Reliable, Affordable: The Value of Multi-Day Storage in New England.”

According to Form Energy’s modeling, by harnessing solar energy more judiciously, New England could realize savings of around $115 billion. An additional $80 billion in savings is projected on the lithium-ion storage front, totaling an estimated $190 billion.

As New England contemplates a transition to a ‘fossil-free by 2050’ framework, the elimination of fossil fuels would pivot their energy dependence to renewables. Current cost modeling suggests that overbuilding renewables and curtailing as needed is more affordable than installing standard 4 and 6-hour lithium-ion backups when it comes to covering the three day winter time wind power lulls that must be considered.

By design, overbuilding renewables results in significant curtailment. In the heavily oversized model, a mere 79% of New England’s offshore wind and 43% of its solar potential are exploited. With Form Energy’s approach, these figures could catapult to 95% and 84% respectively, slashing curtailment by 83%.

While roughly $190 billion in hardware is saved, the system requires the installation of $92 billion of other equipment – including Form Energy’s own technology. The expansion of offshore wind facilities would require an added $29.1 billion (at $2,021/kW), medium-range storage is estimated at $16.1 billion (at $3,232 per kW), and Form Energy’s 23.4 GW/2.34 TWh setup would cost around $46.8 billion (at $2,150 per kW).

It’s worth noting that although Form Energy’s product does greatly increase system efficiency, its round-trip efficiency is under 50%, in contrast to lithium-ion’s 85%.

Factoring in these expenses, net hardware savings hover around the $100 billion mark. Moreover, the company notes that offsetting 111 GW of solar could conserve nearly 300,000 acres of New England’s land.

On the other hand, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources suggests that the energy produced by those 300,000 acres of solar could be matched in capacity by the deployment of as much as 152 GW of “highly suitable” rooftop solar in Massachusetts alone.

Beyond the $100 billion in projected savings, a crucial takeaway is Form Energy’s adherence to a “No Fossil Fuel” system. Presently, New England is without a unified regional policy, with only some progressive states like Massachusetts targeting a “Net Zero” status by 2050.

A prevailing concern for New England’s wind energy is its unpredictability. Despite offshore wind resources in New England demonstrating an impressive winter capacity factor of 60%, there are stretches with virtually zero production, sometimes lasting several days.

To address this, Form Energy analyzed two decades of offshore wind data from ISO New England, the regional power grid manager. The data suggests that pairing every MW of offshore wind with 0.56 MW and 30-34 MWh of energy storage would capably handle offshore wind interruptions, even those at the 90th to 95th severity percentile.

Numerous energy storage alternatives could fit this bill, but Form Energy’s solution stands out. It’s projected to be nearly 80% more affordable than lithium-ion counterparts, carries a minimal fire risk, and boasts over double the longevity, making it an attractive proposition for the region’s energy future.

Solar generated 7% of U.S. electricity in April  Solar electricity was up 16% from 2022, a relatively modest increase due to lower deployed solar capacity in 2022 than in 2021. For the year, solar has covered 5% of all electricity so far, with emission-free sources greater than 43%.

U.S. clean hydrogen roadmap needs work, say analysts  Clean Energy Associates ‘senior director, George Touloupas, and Wood Mackenzie principal analyst, Hector Arreola, suggest The Biden-Harris Administration address cost and scaling roadblocks to meet the U.S. National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap’s ambitious goals.

Ballasted racking from PowerField Energy scales up to utility-scale installation  PowerRack is PowerField’s portable, ballasted racking system that is used in residential, commercial, industrial, and now utility-scale solar.

How California employers can reimburse EV drivers for charging at home  Failure to reimburse employees for charging EV fleet vehicles at home can have serious consequences. Employers can reduce that risk by offering employees an IRS-compliant program that accurately reimburses employees.

Utility ordered to repay customers for illegal community solar metering  Pepco was found to undercount solar generation and failed to credit its customers in a timely fashion.

U.S. national labs evaluate potential for floating solar in Southeast Asia  The labs assessed the technical potential for floating PV and underlined its co-benefits in environmental protection and food security.

A new public utility for Maine would speed clean energy, say advocates  A Maine referendum would create a new publicly owned utility that could purchase and operate the assets of the state’s two investor-owned utilities. Advocates say that would speed Maine’s path to 80% renewables by 2030.

Maine voters will decide in a referendum on November 7 whether to create a new nonprofit, the Pine Tree Power Company, that could purchase the transmission and distribution assets of one or both of the state’s two investor-owned utilities, Central Maine Power (CMP) and Versant Power. Pine Tree Power would purchase the assets only if the Maine Public Utilities Commission finds either or both utilities “unfit to serve.”

Of the eight fitness measures described in the referendum, one relates to each utility’s ability to place the state’s climate goals “ahead of the desires of shareholders to earn a profit.” Maine has a renewable portfolio standard of 80% by 2030.

The referendum calls for creating Pine Tree Power as a customer-owned nonprofit corporation, with one of its eight purposes being assisting the state in “rapidly meeting or exceeding” the state’s climate action plan goals.

The nonprofit group Our Power, formed to promote the ballot initiative, says on its website that “the key to a carbon-free economy is clean electricity” and that “a nonprofit consumer-owned utility will get us there quicker.”

Both CMP And Versant, Our Power says, “often fail to cooperate with solar energy providers seeking interconnection agreements,” while “CMP has a well-documented history of fighting renewable energy initiatives and legislation.”

In its campaign for the ballot measure, Our Power also takes issue with CMP’s and Versant’s cost of electricity, reliability, and customer service. The referendum’s first three “fitness to serve” criteria reflect those three concerns.

If the referendum passes, the Maine Public Utilities Commission would evaluate each utility’s fitness to serve, beginning in 2025. If that evaluation were conducted today, both CMP and Versant would be found unfit to serve, said Lucy Hochschartner, deputy campaign manager for Our Power’s campaign to pass the referendum.

A public utility would save Maine residents money, the campaign says, citing an analysis by economist Richard Silkman, the CEO of Competitive Energy Services. Savings would result largely because a public power company could borrow money at a lower rate than a utility’s regulated rate of return on investments, the analysis says. Silkman said the Maine Turnpike Authority and similar public authorities nationwide issue billions of dollars of revenue bonds each year at low interest rates.

Maine resident and referendum campaign leader Bill Dunn said on a campaign video that “Maine has the worst electric reliability in the whole country and the lowest customer satisfaction. We can do a lot better. Pine Tree Power can help us do that.”

Steve Weems, executive director of the Solar Energy Association of Maine, said on the video that “The main driving force” for the investor-owned utilities “is maximizing shareholder value, and under Pine Tree Power, the main focus would be on creating the best possible service for the customers, because the customers will be in charge.”

The referendum reached the November 7 ballot after campaigners for Our Power secured nearly 70,000 valid signatures in support of the measure. Our Power counts 40 organizations as part of its coalition supporting the referendum. Six Maine residents initially launched the referendum effort.

CMP’s parent corporation Avangrid and Versant’s parent corporation Enmax have funded a campaign to defeat the referendum, and have outspent referendum advocates by a ratio of 17-1, according to reporting by the Portland Press Herald.

Transition process

If passed by voters, the referendum would require the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC), beginning January 1, 2025, to evaluate the transmission and distribution utilities CMP and Versant for their fitness to serve, and to require the sale of a utility found to be unfit within 24 months.

The fair market value of either utility’s transmission and distribution assets would either be negotiated or determined by a refereed process. Neither CMP nor Versant owns generating assets. To purchase the assets, Pine Tree Power would issue debt secured by its future revenues.

Prior to making a purchase price offer for any utility assets, the Pine Tree Power board would be required to adopt bylaws, retain expert professional staff and consultants, secure initial financing, conduct due diligence, and develop a transition plan and a business plan for the company.

Pine Tree Power would select at least one qualified nongovernmental entity to operate the utility, through a competitive solicitation. The “operations team” would be required to retain all workers of the purchased utilities.

The company and the operations team would submit to the PUC within 18 months a 5-year plan to meet initial goals relating to affordability, reliability, decarbonization and internet connectivity. Pine Tree Power would be required to include a program to make “rapid investments” in the distribution grid to upgrade reliability and improve capacity for interconnection of new renewable generation and storage.

Top five battery energy storage system design essentials  Before beginning BESS design, it’s important to understand auxiliary power design, site layout, cable sizing, grounding system and site communications design

Weekly Solar Earnings Recap: Array, Pineapple Energy and SMA Solar  pv magazine USA’s recap of notable upstream solar, integrated solar, finance and rooftop installers that reported fourth quarter or fiscal year earnings over the last week.

Solar-plus-storage system begins operation at Camp Lejeune  Duke Energy added an 11 MWh battery storage system to the 13 MW solar p lant on the Marine Corps base camp in North Carolina.

DOE workforce program matches recent grads with energy fellowship opportunities  The second round of the Clean Energy Innovator Fellowship Program aims to help fellows gain career expertise, plus meet clean energy workforce needs.

Maine community solar project subscriptions to be managed by Energywell The Bangor, Maine 2.8 MW project is UGE’s largest community solar project to date and will be built on a vacant field on the outskirts of Bangor, owned by Grant Realty

UGE International, a commercial and community solar developer, announced the receipt of ‘Notice to Proceed’ (NTP) milestone for a 2.8 MW ground-mounted solar project in Bangor, Maine, whose fair market value is $9.2 million.

The project is UGE’s largest community solar project to date and will be built on a vacant field on the outskirts of Bangor, Maine, owned by Grant Realty.

The NTP milestone indicates that financing for the project has closed, and all permits and interconnection approvals for the project are in place.

Subscriptions for the project will be managed by Energywell, an energy technology company offering clean electricity and community solar products under its ThinkEnergy retail platform. All energy produced by the facility will be used by local residents.

UGE had the project appraised by an third-party firm at a value of $3.24 per watt, giving the project a fair market value of $9.2 million. The project is expected to produce an average of approximately $626,402 in annual revenue, once operational, with a total facility lifetime of up to 35 years. The company currently expects average recurring revenue to carry gross margins at or around 85%.

The Bangor community solar project is among 18 MW of UGE solar projects  currently under development in Maine and follows two other recent NTPs announced earlier this month in Dover-Foxcroft, a 1 MW project to be deployed for the Foxcroft Academy, a private school, and Veazie, Maine, a 2.7 MW community solar project.

The Veazie project location is categorized as a low-to-moderate income (LMI) community, and is expected to receive the 10% LMI Investment Tax Credit adder as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, UGI stated, potentially bringing the total ITC on the $9.1 million project to a 50% ITC credit. 

Including the Bangor project, UGE has reached NTP on 10 MW of projects this year and commercial operation on 1.4 MW of projects. Construction on its latest project is set to begin this spring.

Maine was one of the early adopters of community solar in the U.S., with original legislation for community solar first passed in 2009.  Due to net metering caps and policy changes, in 2019 the Maine Legislature passed its current community solar framework, ‘An Act to Promote Solar Energy Projects and Distributed Generation Resources in Maine,’ to encourage the development of DG solar to both residential and commercial businesses.

Under its community solar program, participating customers receive kilowatt-hour (kWh) credits on their electric utility bill that reduce the amount of the payment owed to the utility, to the standard offer service provider, or, if applicable, to the customer’s competitive electricity provider.

According to the Department of Energy’s Community Solar Market Trends database, as of early 2022 the state of Maine had 12.49 MW of active community solar projects.

Over the last two years alone, Brookfield Renewable-owned Luminace, Nautilus Solar Energy, Nexamp, Renewable Properties, Standard Solar, Summit Ridge Energy, SunRaise and Syncarpha Capital have been involved in Maine community solar development through project financing, development or acquisition, according to pv magazine USA coverage.

“Drone in the box” for thousandths of a cent per kilowatt hour  Raptor Maps is developing a drone and software package for ongoing, on-site visual and thermal intelligence at utility-scale solar facilities.

Tracking clean energy initiatives under the Inflation Reduction Act  A new website called IRAtracker.org clarifies how the Inflation Reduction Act is taking shape and being implemented across more than a dozen federal agencies.

EnerVenue announces non-lithium battery gigafactory in Kentucky  With generous incentives from Shelby County and the state of Kentucky, EnerVenue plans to invest in a one-million square-foot facility to produce metal-hydrogen batteries.

Summit Ridge raises tax equity for 50 MW Maine and Illinois solar portfolio  The $67 million investment utilizes the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Qualified Advanced Energy Project Credit program. Once guidance for low- and moderate-income community incentives and domestic content requirements program is finalized, the developer expects to expand its partnership with the tax investor to fund additional projects in underserved and traditional energy communities.  

Oregon research highlights zinc metal battery improvements  An Oregon State University research group has developed a zinc metal anode electrolyte that raises the efficiency of zinc battery cells to nearly 100%, a breakthrough as companies scramble to find non-lithium-ion alternatives to supplement a growing U.S. energy storage market.

Ultrathin solar cells self-repair radiation damage in space  Third-party testing confirms a high level of resilience to the conditions of space in silicon-based solar cells developed by Arizona-based Solestial.

Massachusetts city offers EV adoption as employee benefit  Partnering with MoveEV to support the transition to EVs is expected to save Easthampton, Mass. about $360,000 per year on gasoline, among other benefits.

Wärtsilä battery passes UL 9540A fire certification milestone  Rigorous testing for grid-scale lithium-ion storage systems involved heating battery cells to induce thermal runaway within Wärtsilä’s storage module. Performing fire tests reveals critical information to the manufacturer, first responders and asset owners about how the battery system reacts in the unlikely event of a cell failure.

Birch Creek Energy acquires utility-scale solar developer  Washington, D.C.-based Foundation Solar is comprised of a team of solar industry veterans that have developed, acquired and managed over 6 GW of generation assets over the past two decades.

Community solar developer Summit Ridge Energy lined up its second tax equity financing commitment from Foss & Company, raising $67 million for a 50 MW community solar portfolio of 13 projects under development in Maine and Illinois.

The investment utilizes the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Qualified Advanced Energy Project Credit program. Once guidance for low- and moderate-income community incentives and domestic content requirements program is finalized, the developer expects to expand its partnership with the tax investor to fund additional projects in underserved and traditional energy communities.

The funding supports a development pipeline to provide residential and commercial subscribers with clean energy and an opportunity to support the local renewable economy.  The company has raised $122 million in tax equity commitments from Foss since partnering with the institutional investor in April 2021.

“In addition to targeting robust cash flow and economic returns for our investors, this portfolio is expected to increase access to low-cost clean energy for thousands of families and small businesses in Illinois and Maine,” said Bryen Alperin, managing director of Foss & Company. “This investment will allow us to continue building upon our current partnership with SRE, as well as advance our long-term mission of supporting a renewable energy future for all.”

Summit Ridge started construction on the 50 MW portfolio early this year and expects to achieve commercial operations in 2024. Once operational, the projects will generate clean power and energy savings for residential and commercial customers across six utility service territories. Commercial customers include small to large businesses who will remotely subscribe to the community solar projects.

At the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) Finance, Tax & Buyers Seminar on March 21, Foss & Company’s Alperin told a tax equity panel audience that with the massive IRA legislation currently being disseminated and parsed out via guidance, “there’s more projects out there right now than investors.”  With additional guidance pending on transferability, or the selling of tax credits, and other incentives under the IRA, the solar project development market is currently in a bottlenecked pattern, with developers and investors both awaiting further clarity as projects get pencilled in, but not built, Alperin said.

Transferability was the number one topic at the SEIA Finance seminar this month, with many policy advisors including Seth Hanlon of the Department of Treasury saying that federal guidance on the tax credit transfer provision could come within a matter of weeks.  This year, companies with taxable income will be allowed to transfer investment and production tax credits, along with other tax credits, for cash to unrelated parties, and the proceeds from the transfer is not treated as taxable income.

Summit Ridge was formed in 2017 by Steve Raeder and Brian Dunn after the pair helmed SunEdison’s East Coast commercial and industrial solar business and served as vice president of the Hunt Companies’ distributed solar group, respectively. The company has developed community solar and rooftop distributed generation projects in Illinois, Maryland and Maine. In Illinois, the company has 250 MW of solar projects constructed and in development.  In July, Summit Ridge raised $175 million from Apollo Funds to fund geographic growth expansion and other initiatives.

In December, Summit Ridge partnered with the 548 Enterprise, Ecademy and Power52 Foundation to launch the “Sustainability Hub” on Chicago’s West Side to train more than 10,000 residents over the next decade.  The solar apprenticeship program is a 13-week (450 hour) training program targeting veterans, formerly incarcerated citizens returning to the workforce (returning citizens), and high school-aged adults from underserved communities. Summit Ridge is committing $600,000 in seed capital over the next two years for the program’s launch. To participate or learn more about a training program, visit  www.548enterprise.com/foundation.

Decarbonization is the move away from fossil fuel resources and toward renewable energy. But with the intermittency of renewables like wind and solar,  energy storage systems are required to ensure reliability. As states increasingly declare decarbonization goals, they will need to create new policies, rules and regulations that will enable the deployment of an unprecedented amount of energy storage, according to the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA), which just released its States Energy Storage Policy: Best Practices for Decarbonization report.

CESA published the report jointly with Sandia National Laboratories, and it highlights best practices, identifies barriers, and underscores the urgent need to expand state energy storage policymaking to support decarbonization in the U.S. The report is based on findings in a 2022 survey of the states leading in decarbonization goals and programs, and it looks at key state energy storage policy priorities and a series of case studies show the challenges encountered by some of the leading states.

The state survey distribution resulted in 22 responses from 14 states plus the District of Columbia. The following states were represented in the survey responses:

An industry survey was also completed by representatives of six energy storage development companies, plus one industry consultant who formerly worked for an energy storage development company:  Enel North America, Key Capture Energy, New Leaf Energy (formerly Borrego), Nostromo Energy, Sunrun, and Tesla.

At the time the study was conducted, 22 states (plus the District of Columbia) adopted decarbonization goals, however, not all have set policy for energy storage deployment. California and New York are cited as examples of states with “very advanced and sophisticated policy measures”. Many others are beginning to assess energy storage policy needs.

What motivates a state to develop energy storage policy? The Best Practices report says it varies. Regulated utilities may request regulatory action because they are seeking to recover the costs of their investments in energy storage. Third-party developers may have found gaps in interconnection rules or valuation standards that the regulatory commission needs to address. And also the process of energy planning at the executive or legislative level may require policy decisions in order to meet the state’s clean energy goals.

The report outlines the four steps to policy development from Level 1, which is demonstrated interest in storage up to the fourth “maturity level” of including storage in strategic plans, and ranks the states by level of maturity. California, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey and New York had all achieved Level 4.

Those states that are just beginning the process have cited a few reasons for their delays in developing storage policy and programs. These include lack of clarity as to which cases are best suited for storage, a belief that storage may become more important later in their process, ongoing best practices assessments, and cost.

Another observation of the study shows that even states with advanced decarbonization goals still struggle with whether and how to deploy storage, especially with the challenge of bringing it to scale within the state’s decarbonization timeframe.

The report found commonalities as to what the states will include in their future energy infrastructures:

• A mix of central and local generators, energy storage, and other distributed energy resources
• A significant expansion of batteries and other energy storage technologies to be used for both emergency backup generation and as peak shaving resources, along with an enhancement of the ability to build infrastructure that can accommodate this significant expansion of energy storage resources
• The use of microgrids or other distributed energy resources (DERs) and their associated management systems to integrate and optimize an increasing amount of on-site intermittent renewable generation and energy storage

The authors caution that this report “highlights early stage results in a highly changeable field.” The study found, for example, that different states face different challenges. Some operate in very different energy markets and regulatory environments, for example. The consensus among respondents is that energy storage is key to hitting decarbonization goals. With fewer than half the leading decarbonization states having set an energy storage procurement goal, there is much more work to be done. But as more states develop energy storage programs to support their decarbonization goals, best practices are emerging that other states can emulate.

A March 23 webinar will summarize findings from the survey. Developed on behalf of the Energy Storage Technology Advancement Partnership (ESTAP), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity, managed by Sandia National Laboratories, and administered by the Clean Energy States Alliance.

San Diego, California-based Luminia, a financier of community solar and other sustainability projects, reports that it closed 2022 with over $2.5 billion in commercial solar financing requests across the U.S., representing close to 200 MW of commercial solar projects, with a development pipeline of 600 MW of additional projects.

In 2022, Luminia (formerly SD Renewables), offered financing solutions that catered to commercial property owners across 36 states with diverse needs. Its solutions range from multi-family and industrial real estate investment trust (REIT) portfolios to private education institutions and agricultural projects.

The company enables property owners to gain access to a range of sustainability and asset value improvements, such as electric vehicle charging infrastructure and water conservation improvements. The projects it supports vary in size and scope to meet individual state and municipal requirements with an average project size of 9.5 MW. The five key markets for the company are Massachusetts, New York, Maine, New Hampshire and New Jersey. In Maine, during 2022 Luminia closed a 15 MW of community solar project with NH Solar Garden, providing access to intermediate and long-term financing.

Luminia continues to expand its suite of financial offerings catered to large commercial portfolio owners. “Our team brings decades of experience as owners and lessors of tenant-occupied commercial real estate. Our REIT-friendly financing structures allow landlords to efficiently share the benefits of solar with their tenants, enabling both landlords and tenants to profitably accelerate solar adoption and meet their ESG objectives,” said Jim Kelly, co-founder of Luminia. “In addition, our strategic focus on community solar provides yet another option for our portfolio clients to monetize their rooftops.”

“By eliminating the financing barriers that once hindered commercial solar progress, we are experiencing explosive demand from our top rated solar partners, especially in the burgeoning community solar space,” said David Field, chief executive officer and co-founder of Luminia.

Luminia’s solution was recently launched on Energy Toolbase’s  ETB Developer platform, which helps developers to access power purchase agreement quotes and additional financing options that are intended to match their customers’ needs.

Luminace, a Brookfield Renewable Partners portfolio company, has reached an agreement to acquire a 21.6 MWdc portfolio of community solar projects in Maine from EDF Renewables North America.

The portfolio includes Overlook Solar (7.2 MW) in Bristol, Tower Solar (7.2 MW) in Embden, Maine, and Green Mile Solar (7.2 MW) in Woolwich, close to the coastal communities of Bath, Sebasco and Popham Beach, Maine.  The projects are estimated to reach commercial operation in 2023.

Discounted bill credits from the projects will be sold to 18 local municipalities, non-profits, and small businesses under Central Maine Power’s Net Energy Billing Program. This platform will allow many of the buyers to in some cases go 100% renewable through the purchase of RECs bundled with existing energy credits, while realizing significant savings on their utility bill over a 20-year term.

The three projects are expected to generate 27,600 MWh of low-carbon energy annually, enough to power 8,400 homes in Maine. This is equivalent to avoiding over 19,560 metric tons of carbon emissions annually which represents the greenhouse gas emissions from over 4,200 passenger vehicles driven over the course of one year.

“This latest acquisition is an important step in our growth strategy across the U.S. to bring clean energy solutions to our valued customers, as well as the evolving value propositions offered via Community Solar market expansion,” said Brendon Quinlivan, senior vice president of distributed generation at Luminace.

In 2019, the Maine Legislature passed distributed generation legislation to encourage the development of solar and small renewable projects in the state. The DG program calls for the procurement of a total of 375 MW of solar and small renewables resources by July 2024, through five separate procurement blocks. For projects awarded under the procurement, Maine’s electric utilities agree to enter into 20-year contracts at the contractual rate established for that particular block.

Maine has programs available that provide opportunities for residential and commercial customers to participate in community solar projects.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Maine ranks 32^nd in the U.S. for solar capacity but deployed a record amount of new solar projects in 2021 with 289.3 MW of deployments. The state’s solar market saw $341 million of investments that year.

Earlier this week, Renewable Properties acquired a 40 MWdc Maine community solar portfolio from NextGrid, bringing its total Maine portfolio to over 42 MWdc in various stages of development.

Design framework for BIPV shading devices  Canadian researchers have developed a new model to improve the performance of building-integrated PV (BIPV) shades in buildings. They considered solar electricity, heat transferred through windows, and interior daylighting quality.

Solar assets are underperforming by 8%, kWh Analytics reports  The 2022 Solar Generation Index report showed a continued trend of solar asset performance falling below estimates.

Renewable Properties acquires 40 MW community solar portfolio in Maine  This latest acquisition from NextGrid brings Renewable Properties’ Maine portfolio to over 42 MW now in various stages of operation, construction, and development.

Solar apprenticeship program to train and employ 10,000+ Illinois residents  The Sustainability Hub, a partnership between Summit Ridge Energy, 548 Enterprise, Ecademy and the Power52 Foundation, plans to train veterans and other Illinois residents for solar careers.

Best practices for planting a pollinator-friendly solar project  How to avoid critical mistakes when planting pollinators for solar projects.

Genie Energy to proceed with two New York community solar projects for 2023 construction  The retail energy provider recently acquired rights to develop seven community solar projects with 34 MW of total capacity in New York and 30 MW of total capacity in Pennsylvania, which it is advancing through permitting.

Tigo Energy to go public via Roth Capital, Craig-Hallum SPAC platform  The 15-year old solar inverter and electronics company will have a $600 million pre-money equity valuation when it goes public by Q2, 2023.

Solar anti-circumvention ruling will not damage short-term module supply, but UFLPA might  The preliminary finding that solar companies are circumventing U.S. tariffs is not expected to have a tangible effect on solar component supply, according to TrendForce.

Renewable Properties expands its portfolio in Maine with a third tranche of projects acquired from NextGrid, bringing its total Maine portfolio to over 42 MWdc of community solar projects in various stages of development, construction, and operation.

Renewable Properties was founded in 2017, and it specializes in developing and investing in small-scale utility and community solar and energy storage projects throughout the United States. The company currently has a pipeline of 650 MW solar energy projects under development throughout the southeast, midwest, northeast and Western U.S.  It has also acquired over 100 MW that is either under construction or in operation

The recent projects acquired from NextGrid are participating in Maine’s net energy billing (NEB) program, which allows residential, commercial, municipal, and industrial customers to offset their electricity bills with the energy generated from renewable energy projects located within their utility service territory. The renewable energy landscape of Maine shifted dramatically in 2019, when current Gov. Janet Mills bolstered the NEB policy and also raised the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 50% by 2030. In addition, Maine has plans to install 375 MW of distributed solar by mid-2024 and to reduce the state’s emissions 45% from 1990 levels by 2030. Since these favorable solar policies were introduced, solar generating capacity in Maine has surged by 300%. The projects acquired by Renewable Properties will contribute significantly to continued solar growth in the state.

“We’re excited to help Maine expand its energy market with community solar, which increases access to local clean energy and its many benefits,” said Aaron Halimi, founder and CEO of Renewable Properties. “With these projects, local homes and businesses will save on their electricity bills, regardless of whether they rent or own their roof with no money down. We’re excited about partnering with NextGrid on this portfolio of projects and look forward to building our long-standing working relationship.”

The operational projects in the initial portfolio tranche total 18.63 MW. They include two in the town of Lewiston, one in Poland, and one in Waterville. The 7.5 MW projects in Lewiston projects have 1,233 subscribers and has been operational since Sept. 1, 2022. The projects will offset 7,750 tons of CO2 annually. The 5.56 MW Poland project came online on Dec. 23, 2021, has 1,081 subscribers, and will generate enough energy to offset 5,946 tons of CO2 per year. The 5.55 MW Waterville project came online on March 16, 2022, has 780 subscribers, and will generate enough solar energy to offset 4,959 tons of CO2 annually.

Two projects of 5.4 MW each are under construction in Bangor and Howland. The projects, scheduled to come online by end of Q2 2023, will generate enough clean energy to power approximately 1,202 homes and offset 10,525 tons of CO2 annually. Construction is set to begin in Q1 2023 on another three projects, totaling 12.6 MW, with expected completion in December 2023. These projects, located in Bangor, Winslow, and Manchester, will generate enough solar to power 1,257 homes and offset 11,000 tons of CO2 annually.

“With these acquisitions, Renewable Properties continues to show its commitment to community solar in Maine,” said Aaron Culig, president of NextGrid. “We were pleased to partner with Renewable Properties for this third acquisition and look forward to building on our successful working relationship.”

NexGrid focuses on commercial opportunities and reports that it is one of the largest low-income community solar companies in the United States, with over 1 GW in development and 150 MW of solar-plus-storage assets in operation. In addition to the NextGrid portfolio acquisitions, Renewable Properties is separately developing a 2.8MW project in Skowhegan and another 2.8 MW project in Orono.

Longroad Energy, a Boston-based renewable energy project developer, has received financing and notice to proceed of the Three Corners Solar project, a 152 MW (DC) facility in Kennebec County, Maine, which upon completion by early 2024, is said to be the largest solar facility in the state.

Total output for the $200 million utility-scale project will be purchased by EDF Energy Services under a long-term power purchase agreement for EDF’s corporate customer load in New England. Additional power capacity will be provided to the ISO-New England power system.

Located near Clinton, Maine, the Three Corners Solar facility has been in development for the past five years.

“We are glad to reach this important milestone and grateful for the support of the towns of Benton and Clinton, Kennebec County, and the residents of the area,” said Matt Kearns, chief development officer of Longroad Energy. “$200 million projects do not come along every day in Maine. This project will be an important resource for Maine to help meet its clean energy objectives and will deliver significant economic benefits to Kennebec County and the region.”

The 690-acre project will use Series 6 and 6+ modules supplied by First Solar, single-axis trackers from Nextracker and inverters from Power Electronics. The facility will interconnected to the Central Maine Power system via a 5.2-mile generator lead line to the Albion Road substation.

During construction, Three Corners Solar will support 150 construction jobs and generate $60 million of direct purchase assets.

The facility has projected $8 million in property tax revenue for host communities and the State of Maine.

Maine Economic & Community Impact:

• $100,000 ($5,000 per year) to local scholarship programs and charitable organizations during the 20-year operating term of the project.
• $100,000 to Unity College to fund internships and research opportunities for faculty and students in renewable energy.

• $25,000 to Sebasticook Regional Land Trust to support conservation efforts.
• The project has conserved ~1,875 acres of predominately forested lands, protecting high value wetlands, deer wintering areas, inland waterfowl wading bird habitat, and critical terrestrial habitat.

Environmental Impact:

• The project will generate ~200 GW hours of electricity per year, or approximately 140,000 metric tons of avoided CO2 emissions equivalent per year. The avoided CO² emission is equivalent to taking ~30,000 cars off the road for the 20-year PPA term.
• The project conserves ~1,875 acres of land in the region, including 1,020 acres in the Unity Wetlands Focus Area, 324 acres in Readfield, Maine and 531 acres in Shirley, Maine. Conservation agreements will protect high value wetlands, deer wintering areas, inland waterfowl wading bird habitat, and critical terrestrial habitat.
• The majority of the project is sited on property that has been used for commercial timber production, a practice that will continue nearby.

EPC contractors for the project include E.S. Boulos, Reed & Reed and Comprehensive Land Technologies.

KeyBank and U.S. Bank have committed to the $200 million project debt and tax equity financing package.

Formed in 2016, Longroad Energy is backed by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, Infratil and MEAG Munich Ergo Asset Management. The company owns and operates 457 MW of wind farms and 1.12 GW of solar projects and its current project development pipeline includes 1.57 GW of wind and 1.43 GW of solar projects in 14 states.

In Maine, Longroad has about 252 MW of solar projects in various stages of development. On October 26, the company’s King Pine 1 GW wind project was approved by the Maine Public Utilities Commission as a winning bid to enter the Northern Maine Transmission market in the coming years.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Maine has deployed 559.2 MW of solar projects through mid-2022 and ranks 32^nd in the U.S. for solar deployments, with 50 solar companies currently operating in the state.

High electricity rates push homeowners to consider solar Rising electric rates, grid instability, environmental concerns and decreased solar costs are all reasons for homeowners to go solar, according to a study by Rocket Solar.

Landfill solar project to cover 63% of South Portland’s municipal electricity needs  The brownfield-sited project will bring the city’s municipal electricity to 80% sourced from solar.

50 states of solar incentives: Florida  Aptly nicknamed the Sunshine State, Florida is a leading market for PV deployment. However, it lags other states in terms of policy support.

South Carolina electric co-op pursues batteries and other alternatives to a proposed gas unit  Utility-scale batteries are being pursued by many utilities, the generation and transmission co-op utility said in explaining its decision, while aggregated distributed resources “can be counted on as predictable generation capacity.”

Solar-plus-storage kept the lights on in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona  Sunnova SunSafe  solar + storage systems generated a total of nearly 2 GWh of energy total with 3.4 million hours of aggregate back-up power, or an average of 128 hours of power generated per household.

The City of South Portland has furthered its commitment to renewable energy, installing a 4.7 MW, 12,746 panel solar facility atop a landfill. The project is expected to offset 63% of the city’s municipal electric needs and save taxpayers over its 40-year expected commercial life.

“Thanks to this extraordinary collaborative effort, solar energy now powers the vast majority of municipal operations—a win for both the environment and taxpayers,” said City Manager Scott Morelli.

The project was financed via power purchase agreements managed by ReVision Energy. There was no upfront cost to the City of South Portland to initiate the project. Calibrant Energy, a distributed energy-as-a-service company, paid the upfront cost and the City will pay for the power generated by the project at a rate lower than utility-provided power.

With the project complete, more than 80% of South Portland’s municipal electricity needs are met by solar. The new 4.7 MW array is expected to offset 4,100 metric tons of annual carbon emissions, according to EPA statistics.

“Because the cost of solar technology has plummeted by 90% over the past two decades, the City of South Portland and its citizens will derive a strong economic and environmental return on this solar investment. And perhaps best of all, the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act will further reduce clean energy costs in 2023 and beyond, making solar power, heat pumps, battery storage and electric vehicles the most attractive options for homeowners, businesses, nonprofits and municipalities.” Phil Coupe, co-founder of ReVision Energy.

The three-phase project began in 2017 with a 1 MW array, which was the largest municipal project in Maine at the time it was completed. In 2022, the project was expanded with a 474 kW Landfill East and 3.2 MW Landfill West. According to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the combined projects represent the largest landfill solar project in the state.

“Delivering sustainable solar energy with flexible financing will provide economic and environmental benefits to the area for decades to come,” said Thomas Biddinger, director of partnerships at Calibrant Energy.

After seven years, the City has the option to purchase the system at a discount and own all the power generated by the system for the remainder of the 40-year commercial operation period.

The project employed local electricians, electrical apprentices, engineers, and other solar professionals during development and construction. The collaborative partnership for the multi-phase project began planning in 2013.

“Transitioning society from fossil fuels to renewable energy and clean technology is the biggest infrastructure project in the history of humankind, and one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities of the 21st century. The City of South Portland’s clean energy leadership is already saving taxpayers money while significantly reducing local carbon pollution,” said Coupe.

ReVision Energy is a 100% employee-owned solar company with offices in Portland and Montville, Maine; Brentwood and Enfield, New Hampshire; and North Andover, Massachusetts. The certified B-corp has over 350 employee co-owners, 10,000 installations, and 19 years of experience.

Brookfield Renewable has agreed to acquire Standard Solar and Scout Clean Energy, helping both renewable energy leaders to move into the next phase of their development.

Brookfield Renewable announced the closing of its acquisition of Standard Solar for consideration of $540 million with the potential to invest an additional $160 million to support the business’ growth initiatives. Standard Solar is a developer, owner and operator of commercial and community distributed solar, with approximately 500 MW of operating and under construction contracted assets. The company also has a development pipeline of almost 2 GW and a presence in high value solar markets in the U.S., such as New York, Maryland, Minnesota and Maine. Standard Solar is also strong in the community solar market, recently completing a 7.1 MW project in New York.

“Through this acquisition, which provides additional large-scale access to capital, Standard Solar is poised for massive growth, enabling us to contribute in an even more significant way to the clean energy transition,” said Scott Wiater, president and CEO of Standard Solar. “We’re looking forward to joining the Brookfield Renewable portfolio, one of the world’s largest renewable energy platforms. Our two companies share a mutual passion for renewables and company cultures that recognize and amplify excellence and equity – we are the ideal match.”

The company has also agreed to acquire Scout Clean Energy for $1 billion with the potential to invest an additional $350 million to support the business’ development activities. Scout’s portfolio includes over 1.2 GW of operating wind assets, including 4 GW managed on behalf of third parties, and a pipeline of over 22 GW of wind, solar and storage projects across 24 states, including almost 2.5 GW of under construction and advanced-stage projects. Last year Scout Clean Energy acquired the $400m Blue Sky Project, which followed closely on the heels of the company’s announced purchase of a 112 MW solar project in Missouri.

“Scout is pleased to be sponsored going forward by an industry-leading partner to help Scout continue to grow our rapidly expanding pipeline of wind, solar and battery storage projects across the United States,” said Michael Rucker, CEO and founder of Scout Clean Energy. “With the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, we believe now is the right time for Scout to move into our next phase of expansion with a highly respected and experienced partner, like Brookfield Renewable.”

Both Scout and Standard Solar will continue to operate as independent businesses within the Brookfield Renewable U.S. platform. The transactions will be invested through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund I, which has raised $15 billion to invest across a range of transition opportunities.

“We underwrote both transactions without the benefit of the Inflation Reduction Act so the additional incentives now available represent a significant boost to each business,” said Connor Teskey, CEO of Brookfield Renewable. “Our development pipeline in the United States is now close to 60,000 MW and is well diversified across wind, utility-scale solar, distributed generation, and energy storage. Combined with our existing fleet we are well positioned for continued growth as owners and operators of one of the largest diversified clean power businesses in the country.”

The Scout and Standard Solar acquisitions follow a string of recent clean energy investments by Brookfield Renewable in North America during 2022, including a $650 million acquisition of Urban Grid, and the exclusive right to invest up to $750 million on a project by project basis with Entropy, and a joint venture with California Resource Corporation, two leading carbon capture and sequestration platforms in Alberta and California, respectively. Altogether, the Brookfield Global Transition Fund has invested or allocated $3.5 billion for clean energy investments and follow-on capital in North America in 2022.

People on the Move: First Solar, Scale Microgrid Solutions, NY-BEST, and more  Job moves in solar, storage, cleantech, utilities, and energy transition finance.

50 states of solar incentives: North Carolina  North Carolina is ranked fourth in the country for solar installations, growth that is driven by solar supportive renewable energy portfolio standards, policies and regulations.

Watch: Flyover footage of a 6.5 MW community solar project in Maine  Syncarpha Capital announced it achieved commercial operations for the project, which will supply renewable energy to Central Maine Power customers.

Perovskite solar cell achieves 24% efficiency, retains 87% of output after 100 days  Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory made a breakthrough in high efficiency and stability for perovskite solar cells.

Fully operational residential microgrid will help power exhibits at RE+  One of the features on the show floor at RE+ will be a live demonstration of an operational hybrid, bi-directional microgrid.

Syncarpha Capital, a solar developer, owner, and operator of community solar projects, said its 6.5 MW project in Maine has achieved commercial operations. The solar array, located near the state’s capital of Augusta, is expected to generate electricity equivalent to the demand of 1,050 Maine residents.

The system was built on land purchased by Syncarpha’s partner Acadia Energy on roadside land owned by the Maine Department of Transportation. About 10 acres of the 30-acre purchase was donated to the Sportsman Alliance of Maine.

Central Maine Power customers are able to subscribe to local community solar projects with Syncarpha with no upfront cost. The company said the program saves customers 15% on electricity while supporting Maine’s renewable energy transition.

“This has been a great project for our team to be a part of and we have truly enjoyed our work in the City of Augusta,” said Michael Atkinson, director of development at Syncarpha Capital. “It is always a great feeling for us to see residents and the environment benefit from the transformation of unused space. We are fortunate to have partnered with Acadia Energy and are happy to be a part of helping Maine reach its clean energy goal of being 100% renewable and look forward to seeing more community solar throughout the state.”

Watch a flyover video of the project here:

National community solar efforts

Earlier this year, the National Community Solar Partnership, a Department of Energy (DOE) program, set an ambitious goal of enabling enough community solar projects to power the equivalent of 5 million households, and achieve $1 billion in combined energy bill savings. This goal aligns with the DOE’s greater target of 100% clean electricity by 2035 and places a focus on ensuring that American citizens can meaningfully access the benefits of the energy transition.

DOE reports that by year’s end 2020, about 3GW of community solar in the US was active, enough to power about 600,000 homes. The community solar model only represents about 8% of the total distributed solar capacity in the nation. This target would entail a jump from 3GW installed capacity to 20GW by 2025.

The community solar market in the United States will add at least 7 GWdc in existing markets over the next five years, according to a recent report by Wood Mackenzie and the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA).

“There continue to be significant tailwinds for the community solar industry as legislators in existing and new states look to community solar as a way to achieve energy policy goals,” said Jeff Cramer, CEO of CCSA. “The numbers released by Wood Mackenzie represent a conservative forecast of what’s in the pipeline for the next few years. We call on all federal and state policymakers to help remove the barriers and incentivize deployment of community solar to cut energy costs and give more people access to these programs.”

Report findings also highlighted that community solar-plus-storage can provide grid flexibility, but regulatory models do not currently recognize how these projects can manage load.

“As community solar becomes an increasing share of non-residential projects, developers are contending with high grid upgrade costs to manage this new load on the distribution end of the grid. Community solar-plus-storage could help manage this load and provide grid flexibility, but so far, its scope is limited to a few states, and current rules do not necessarily value storage for its grid resilience capabilities,” said Goldstein.

If consumers could vary their electricity consumption up or down based on wholesale electricity prices, demand for power would be more flexible. That would help balance variable renewable generation, and yield annual system savings of $33-50 billion nationwide across several scenarios, found a modeling study by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Most of the savings would result from lower capacity payments to hold generation capacity in reserve to meet peak load. Reserve capacity can help prevent steep increases in wholesale energy prices when power demand surges, or many generators go offline. The demand flexibility from real-time pricing would reduce peak load, reducing the need for reserve capacity and the amount of capacity payments, the study found.

Additional savings would result from lower wholesale energy prices and greater consumption of energy when prices are lowest, for instance at times of high renewable generation. Customer electric bills would be reduced by up to 17% for participants, and by 10% for non-participants, in a moderate renewables case.

Pilot studies

Following a pilot study in southern California that showed real-time pricing worked on a distribution circuit, utility SCE has launched a follow-on $2.5 million real-time pricing pilot to help prepare for potential extreme summertime weather. The pilot is open to residential, commercial, and industrial customers with price-responsive end-uses, such as electric vehicle charging, behind-the-meter batteries, and controllable loads, which are equipped with suitable software.

Also in California, state regulators approved a $3.25 million pilot program to offer dynamic hourly pricing for agricultural pumping loads. Regulators directed utility PG&E to implement the pilot in coordination with community choice aggregator Valley Clean Energy, which proposed the pilot. VCE’s agricultural pumping load represents 15% of its annual load.

For a real-time pricing pilot project that will involve residents of three rural communities in Maine and New Hampshire, the US Department of Energy has granted $6.65 million. The Post Road Foundation is leading the project, which involves New Hampshire Electric Cooperative and Efficiency Maine, a quasi-state agency.

“Several jurisdictions currently offer real-time pricing rates,” noted the California Public Utilities Commission, in a decision approving the two California projects. Those include ComEd and Ameren in Illinois for 30,000 customers, Georgia Power for 2,000 customers, and Spain, where it is the default rate for 10 million customers, the commission said.

Sending prices to devices

For its modeling study, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory modeled the consumption of electricity under real-time pricing in the ERCOT grid region in Texas, which they considered generally representative of the United States, and which enabled them to compare their modeled end-loads to actual end-loads in ERCOT. They then scaled up the results to the United States as a whole.

As shown in the featured image above, the modeled system requires automated, price-responsive device controls, a price-flexibility curve set by each consumer, a service provider that aggregates those consumer choices, and a price-discovery mechanism that determines the price at which the grid objective is achieved. That price is then sent to the device controls, to achieve the grid objective, explained Hayden Reeve, senior technical advisor at PNNL, in a webinar. The modeling used both day-ahead and real-time wholesale energy prices.

The real-time pricing scheme modeled by researchers involved four price elements: the wholesale locational marginal price of electricity, a congestion cost, a distribution cost, and a fixed meter charge. The congestion cost was not modeled as revenue to utilities, but was distributed back to customers.

The modeled scenarios involved two separate deployments of distributed energy resources: flexible loads (HVAC units and residential water heaters) and behind-the-meter batteries. Each type of deployment was evaluated under a business-as-usual case, a moderate renewable generation scenario, and a future higher-renewables scenario that included the deployment of rooftop solar and electric vehicles.

Although ERCOT does not have a capacity market, the researchers modeled a system with a capacity market, in order to represent the entire United StatesMaine where capacity markets are widespread.

Texas has outlawed retail rates indexed to wholesale prices, following surging wholesale prices during the Texas freeze, noted Reeve, during a presentation on the study at a conference organized by IEEE, the global society of engineers. Reeve questioned the state’s use of “a five-minute economic signal to guide multi-decade investments,” and suggested that end users should be protected by capping price signals. “Beyond that, there’s open space in terms of what is the right economic signal to make these multi-decade investment strategies worthwhile to people.”

Nautilus Solar Energy said that it has acquired two community solar portfolios of projects under development in Maine from BNRG Maine LLC, a joint community solar development venture led by BNRG Renewables Dirigo Solar.

According to Nautilus, two portfolios are comprised of five projects in Cumberland, Kennebec and Penobscot counties, totaling 26.2 MW in total capacity. All five projects are in various stages of development, with the first projects expected to reach operation by the third quarter of 2022. Nautilus will act as the long-term owner of the projects and will be responsible for overseeing construction, maintaining its long-term performance, and acquiring and managing customer subscriptions. Any residential Central Maine Power utility customer is eligible to subscribe to the projects through Nautilus with no upfront cost, no long-term commitment, and no cancellation fees, Nautilus reports.

The projects will all operate under Maine’s NEB program, which allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects, like community solar, which, in turn, spurs further development of these assets within the state. The NEB program has become critical in establishing a healthy and growing community solar market in Maine.

Nautilus Solar acquired these portfolios in two separate transactions with BNRG Maine, bringing Nautilus’ capacity of acquired and developed community solar projects within the state to more than 92 MW, of which 52 MW will be operational end of Q3 2022 and 88 MW by the end of 2022. Nautilus has made a big push into community solar since being acquired in 2019 by Power Sustainable, a subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada.

In April, Nautilus announced the completion of a 24.9 MW community solar portfolio in New York. Comprised of four projects located in Allegany, Cattaraugus, Genesee, and Steuben counties, the combined portfolio provides enough power for an estimated 1,950 households and multiple commercial subscribers, including the Target, Lowe’s, and Hannaford Brothers. Two months before that, the company announced the completion of a pair of community solar portfolios in Colorado and Minnesota.

In Colorado, Denver-based Pivot Energy and Nautilus completed a 13 MW community solar portfolio, which is made up of seven projects located in Crowley, Weld, and Logan counties. The installations provide energy to an estimated 1,700 households and 12 commercial subscribers, including the Town of Breckenridge. The projects are in the Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy utility territories.

In Minnesota, Nautilus acquired twelve community solar projects in Minnesota totaling 16.8 MW of solar capacity, located in Blue Earth, Sherburne, Wabasha, Winona, Sibley, Wright, Pope, and Meeker counties. The projects are all in various stages of development, with the first several projects expected to be operational by the end of 2022. Once completed, the projects will provide a clean energy option to 4,200 households in Minnesota within the Xcel Energy electric utility territory. Any residential Xcel Energy utility customer in Minnesota located in the same or adjacent county to a project may subscribe through Nautilus with no upfront cost, no long-term commitment and no cancellation fees, Nautilus reports.

DNV aims to achieve FPV-specific reference standards for floating solar PV  DNV is spearheading two joint industry projects that aim to develop reference standards for the design, development, and operation of floating PV systems. Such standards are still largely lacking, potentially leading to delays and obstacles in permitting and authorization.

DOE seeks input on $508 million long-duration energy storage initiative  The Long Duration Energy Storage for Everyone, Everywhere Initiative, created by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will advance energy storage systems toward widespread commercial deployment by lowering the costs and increasing the duration of energy storage resources.

Climate, the Texas grid, and solar + batteries to the rescue  Extreme weather, power outages, and centralized grid failures are increasingly becoming the norm. How will PV and battery energy storage mitigate and adapt to climate problems?

CommonBond banks on residential solar financing success  The fintech company will now focus exclusively on its solar business, which has quickly become its best-performing product since launching in 2021.

BlueWave acquired by infrastructure investment firm, Axium  Axium’s first renewable energy development company acquisition will provide BlueWave with the capital to evolve its business model to develop and construct, as well as own and manage the projects within its development portfolio.

UGE develops community solar project on Maine landfill  The project is part of a larger 38 MW portfolio the company is developing across the state.

Community solar developer UGE will be helping the town of Norway, Maine reach its environment and sustainability goals, announcing the development of a 1 MW community solar project, set to be built atop a capped landfill in the town.

To increase community engagement with the developers and educate on the benefits of community solar, the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy, a non-profit grassroots environmental organization in Norway, will educate the community and bring subscribers to the project.

The Norway installation is one project in a 12-project, 38 MW portfolio that UGE is developing in Maine. In total, the company has developed more than 700 projects with a combined capacity over 500 MW.

In addition to saving on energy costs, the Town of Norway will earn long-term lease revenue on the land where the project will be built.

“The new community solar farm will provide financial support for our town and for local businesses for decades to come,” said Dennis Lajoie, town manager of Norway. “We hope to serve as an example for other small towns, encouraging them to turn underutilized land into sources of clean energy and revenue that can be re-invested in their communities.”

The Norway project will all  but certainly operate under Maine’s NEB program, which allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects, like community solar, which, in turn, spurs further development of these assets within the state. The NEB program has become critical in establishing a healthy and growing community solar market in Maine.

Standard Solar and Acadia Energy announced plans to develop a 7.5 MW solar farm on the western side of the former ReEnergy biomass plant site in the town of Fort Fairfield, Maine.

The solar farm will lease land from Smith’s Farm, Inc and land previously used for a biomass power facility owned by New York-based ReEnergy Biomass Operations, which transferred the 32-acre site to the town in 2018 after concluding that the plant was no longer economically viable.

“The Fort Fairfield project will transform the least desirable area of the former industrial site into a clean energy producer that benefits the community while creating additional lots for the Town to lease or sell,” said Eric Partyka, director of business development for Standard Solar.

The fixed-tilt ground-mount system is projected to generate 9,112 MWh in its first year of operation, with about 10% of the power going to Smith’s Farm, and the benefitting other commercial and industrial organizations throughout Aroostook County.

“Former industrial sites are ideal for solar energy development,” said Glenn Walker of Acadia Energy. “Our partnership with Standard Solar on the Fort Fairfield project will provide a model that can be followed throughout Maine and around the U.S., showing how to successfully transition industrial sites with limited potential into a solar farm that will save money for local businesses and benefit the environment.”

Construction on the project is expected to begin in May, with completion targeted for the fourth quarter of this year.

Standard Solar currently owns and operates more than 250 MW of solar across the United States, of which 50 MW are in Maine. Recently Standard Solar acquired a 7 MW community solar project in Trenton, Maine, which is the state’s first large-scale community solar installation.

Acadia Energy, based in Rye, New Hampshire, is solar developer with a pipeline of over 300 MW of solar across the United States, and over 20 MW of solar under construction (or in various stages of development) in Maine.

Dynamic Energy Solutions, a developer based out of Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania has found an offtaker for a 7 MW ground-mount solar installation that the company developed in Norridgewock, Maine.

Jadex Inc., a manufacturing company headquartered in Greer, South Carolina, announced that the company has signed on with Dynamic Energy, and will purchase the electricity generated by the Norridgewock Solar Project to power operations at its LifeMade manufacturing facility in East Wilton, Maine. Through the solar project’s generated utility bill credits, Jadex will recognize a significant reduction in its annual electricity spend and benefit from the renewable generation.

The Norridgewock project is part of an 11-project, 75 MW solar portfolio that Dynamic Energy is developing and constructing throughout Central Maine Power and Versant’s utility territories in Maine, all of which are expected to be operational by the end of 2023. In December 2021, Dynamic Energy finalized definitive asset sale agreements with the Renewable Power Group of Goldman Sachs Asset Management for the projects included in the Maine portfolio. All of the projects within the portfolio were developed under Maine’s net energy bill credit program.

During the development phase, which began in early 2019, Dynamic worked primarily with Maine-based companies to provide services and expertise in such areas as permit acquisition, geotechnical and environmental, land title and legal matters, and civil and electrical engineering.

While the company is headquartered in Pennsylvania, Dynamic Energy’s development footprint spans the East Coast, with projects in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and as far west as Illinois. LifeMade’s East Wilton manufacturing facility produces disposable cutlery, temperature-controlled packaging, and single-use consumer goods.

The renewable energy landscape of Maine shifted dramatically in 2019, when current Gov. Janet Mills took office and spent her first legislative session signing legislation to undo the state’s net metering replacement policy, gross metering; raise the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 50% by 2030; create a block grant program to support the installation of 375 MW of distributed solar by mid-2024; and reduce the state’s emissions 45% from 1990 levels by 2030.

In the time since, Maine has emerged into a robust economy for the development of solar projects, especially small scale installations like community solar, commercial and industrial (C&I), and residential solar. And while the rebate and incentive environment in Maine isn’t as complex as some of its New England neighbors, it’s worth taking a look at the policies and tools that have enabled the state to rebound so quickly.

Bye-bye gross metering

Perhaps the most meaningful change was also the first one that Mills pursued. During the tenure of former Gov. Paul LePage, Maine’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) adopted solar policy changes that instituted immovable, fixed fees on rooftop customers; capped net metering project size at 660kW, and limited community solar projects to just 10 customers.

The state’s Gross metering policy, which replaced an existing net metering program, required that all electricity generated by rooftop PV systems be metered, whether or not it was consumed on-site. It also set a system whereby the credits for this self-generated electricity was discounted based on the year of installation.

The Mills administration, the state legislature, and the PUC have since reversed these steps, instituting the Net Energy Billing (NEB) program, raising the community solar cap to 5MW (the practical standard), and eliminating the 10-meter cap for community solar projects.

Maine’s NEB program allows customers to offset their electricity bills by selling their excess generation back to the grid, same as most other net metering programs. Where the program differs is that its actually two programs: one available to all electric utility customers, and the other available to non-residential customers.

The NEB kWh Credit Program provides kWh credits on electricity bills for participating customers who have their own project installed on their property, or participate in a nearby community solar project. The NEB Tariff Rate Program provides dollar credits on participating C&I customers’ electricity bills at a rate determined annually by the PUC.

Alongside NEB, the state’s solar customers also have access to the Federal Investment Tax Credit, which can reduce the cost of a PV system purchased outright or leased by 26%. The NEB program has becoming critical in establishing a healthy and growing community solar market in Maine.

What’s to come

Distributed generation (DG) as a whole has become a focus in expanding Maine’s renewable energy capabilities, and was one of the targets of Mills’ initial legislative push. The Act To Promote Solar Energy Projects and Distributed Generation Resources in Maine, passed in 2019, calls for the procurement of a total of 375MW of distributed generation resources by July 2024, through five separate procurement blocks. For projects awarded under the procurement, Maine’s electric utilities agree to enter into 20-year contracts with projects awarded under the procurement, at the contract rate established for that particular block.

Like the NEB program, this program is also split up between shared DG projects and C&I projects. Shared DG projects will total 250MW across the five procurement blocks and individuals who participate will receive dollar credits on their electricity bills through participation in community shared solar projects. Logistically, DG projects have specific subscription requirements for municipal, low-and-moderate income and small subscriber offtake, and there is no cap on the number of subscribers that can enroll in a given project. The C&I portion of the program is limited to one C&I entity per project.

In June 2021, Gov Mills signed LD 528, a bill which sets out a plan for 300MW of new energy storage capacity by the end of 2025 and 400 MW through 2030. After that, the Governor’s Energy Office will reevaluate every two years for new storage goals. 

The PUC also plans to configure new electricity rate designs to encourage energy storage growth by the end of 2022. Such structures will include time-of-use rates and incentives to lower peak demand for power. 

The bill outlines four actions that will be taken to achieve this goal: 

1. The expansion of energy storage pilot projects, implementing cost effective projects as statewide programs.  
2. The creation of bring-your-own-device programs in which customer owned and customer sited storage can be aggregated, and performance incentives are provided for reducing peak loads.  
3. The deployment of rebate or funding programs for energy storage paired with renewable energy for residential, commercial, and industrial electricity customers. 
4. Leading customer education series on demand management and storage, particularly targeting low-income and rural populations in the state. 

Standard Solar announced that it has acquired from EDF Renewables a solar and storage project developed on an EPA Superfund site in Acton, Massachusetts.

The project is the 4.69MW/4MWh Lawsbrook Solar + Storage project, and it’s housed on the W.R. Grace Superfund Site, an area formerly used for gravel extraction and acquired by EDF Renewables in 2018. The project also operates under Massachusetts’ Solar Massachusetts Renewable Targets (SMART) program, which provides incentives for solar and storage projects.

Created in 2016 the SMART program is one of the pillars that the state will use to achieve its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, in addition to its recently codified 2030 and 2050 goals for a statewide clean energy economy.

“The Acton Water Solar + Storage project is the first of two projects that EDF Renewables has had the privilege to partner with the Acton Water District on,” said associate director of business development for EDF Renewables, Peter Bay. “We are thrilled to see the project come to fruition, despite numerous permitting and interconnection challenges, and begin conveying benefits to the District and Town of Plymouth.” 

The Lawsbrook project is part of Standard Solar’s expanding portfolio in Massachusetts. The company currently owns and maintains nearly 20MW of renewable assets in Massachusetts and 280MW of commercial and community solar projects throughout the United States.

“Adding this solar+storage project to our existing portfolio in Massachusetts underscores our rapid growth, said Director of Business Development for Standard Solar, Eric Partyka. “It’s always significant when we connect with a great partner like EDF Renewables and acquire projects that are helping a town like Plymouth and the Acton Water District to capitalize on the multiple benefits of a solar and storage system.”

Standard solar also recently acquired a 7MW community solar project in Trenton, ME. This acquisition adds to the company’s existing 50 MW portfolio in Maine.

The project, Trenton’s first large-scale community solar installation, is also part of the state’s Net Energy Billing program, and will bring a 15-25% energy savings to nine leading Maine businesses who have subscribed, sharing the benefits without having to connect to it or invest in its development. NEB, overseen by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, enables businesses and municipalities to receive financial benefits from clean energy produced by a local solar array.

The project, which is expected to be completed this summer, utilizes bifacial solar modules – double-sided panels that will help the system generate an additional 15% of output from ground reflection, something particularly advantageous given Maine’s snowy winters.

“This newest addition to our ownership portfolio in Maine signifies an important step in our push to bring cleaner energy to business and communities and our nation closer to its decarbonization goals,” said Director of Business Development at Standard Solar, Harry Benson.

Aspen Power Partners announced it raised $120 million in a funding round led by Ultra Capital, Redball Power, and others. The company was incubated at Energy Impact Partners, a global investor in sustainable energy transition.

Aspen also entered into agreements to develop or acquire 48 community and distributed solar projects totaling over 200MW across California, Maine, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The company said it connects its services to consumers and businesses across all income levels and hard-to-reach property types.

The company originates its own projects and partners with local developers to accelerate deployment. “We look forward to innovating with our key stakeholders as we develop and finance distributed generation solar, storage, and electric vehicle charging projects during this critical climate decade,” said Jorge E. Vargas, Managing Partner at Aspen Power Partners.

Late in 2021, the Biden administration set a target to power 5 million US homes with community solar projects by 2025. This represents a 700% increase in current capacity. In New York, a framework of 10GW of distributed solar by 2030 was initiated by Governor Kathy Hochul.

The Aspen team brings over $1 billion in renewable energy project financing experience, with expertise across development, construction, and asset management disciplines. It was founded by Scott Delaney, David Berv, Dan Gulick, Jackson Lehr, and Jorge Vargas.

Energy Impact Partners

Aspen’s incubator, Energy Impact Partners (EIP), has made over 80 investments exceeding $2.5 billion in the energy decarbonization transition. The company estimates its work thus far will save over 2.8 MT of carbon emissions.

EIP notably invested in Form Energy, the Boston-based startup that develops long-duration grid-scale iron-air batteries. The iron-air battery is composed of cells filled with thousands of iron pellets that are exposed to air and create rust. The oxygen is then removed, reverting the rust to iron. Controlling this process allows the battery to be charged and discharged.

Form said the batteries can store electricity for 100-hour durations at full systems costs competitive with active power plants. At full-scale production, Form said the modules would deliver electricity at one tenth the cost of lithium-ion batteries.

(Read: “Multi-day iron-air batteries reach commercialization”)

EIP is also an investor in Enchanted Rock, a microgrid deployer, Arcadia, a community solar platform, and Urbint, an AI-backed energy management company.

In case number 2021-0035 with the Maine Public Utilities Commission, electricity utility Central Maine Power Company (CMP) has admitted faults, and offered a settlement to tighten up their solar power integration work after last year’s interconnection fee debacle.

To meet the utility’s goal of improved interconnection processing, $550,000 will be spent hiring up to six new contractors to support the interconnection process. These individuals will be focused on the transmission level cluster study process for large scale projects. An additional $150,000 will go to fund an ongoing industry/utility working group whose purpose is to identify and troubleshoot grid connection challenges.

The $700,000 will come from shareholder money, and is not allowed to be covered by ratepayers.

The settlement also notes that CMP was at fault, and should have identified its ‘over voltage’ challenges far sooner in the project interconnection process. The utility said they will change analysis techniques in order to better estimate upgrade requirements.

Among these interconnection technique alterations is a pricing refinement. The utility CMP says they will “commit to provide cost estimates and construction schedules that are more detailed than the (-50%/+200%) cost estimate(s)” that they had been submitting.

Additionally, the utility released a list of projects – noted below – that are currently in long term cluster studies, slowing down their progression toward construction. CMP says they will work toward meeting the currently defined deadlines so as not to slow down these projects any further.

This settlement comes in response to massive interconnection fees that were sent out to solar developers after they’d already been given costs, and processes, for interconnection.

Per the Maine Renewable Energy Association, some examples of the upgrade changes that were received by solar developers include:

• Developer A – Initially had received a fInalized Interconnection Agreement, with anticipated upgrade fees of $100,000. When the document was sent back to the utility for their final signature, instead of receiving the countersigned original agreement, a new upgrade fee of $1,420,000 was delivered, plus additional costs to be determined;
• Developer B – With five projects completely built, and having a fully executed interconnection agreement, the developer received a notice that its projects faced an upgrade, along with additional fees and a longer processing schedule.
• Developer C – A project with a fully executed Interconnection Agreement was reassessed for more than $12 million in upgrade charges for a project less than 2 MW in size.

After some public pressure, including the Governor Janet Mills calling for an investigation, managers at the company were able to find the errors of their ways. The utility responded with a letter stating that the initial upgrade estimates, which were in the range of $10-$15 million per substation, reflected the cost of a complete rebuild. The revised estimates delivered a range of $175,000 to $375,000 for required upgrades.

Two commercial potato farms in Maine are set to receive federal funding from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the installation of solar PV projects. 

The state is set to receive over $24 million in grants and loans to build renewable energy infrastructure in rural areas, like the two solar facilities built for Irving Farms of Caribou and Corey Rioux & Sons of Fort Kent, Maine.  Irving Farms is receiving more than $150,000 to fund a system large enough to power 44 homes, and Rioux & Sons was granted more than $30,000 for a system large enough to power roughly nine homes. The facilities are planned to power the growing, shipping, and packing operations of the two companies. 

These grants came upon successful application to the Rural Energy for America program, which offers guaranteed loan financing and grant funding for small businesses to install renewable energy systems or make energy efficiency upgrades.

(Read: “Which crops pair well with solar?”)

To qualify for the program, applicants must be agricultural producers with at least 50% of their gross income coming from agricultural operations and must be small businesses in eligible rural areas with populations of 50,000 residents or less. Eligible addresses can be checked here. 

Funds can be used to construct solar PV projects, or other renewable energy projects like biomass, geothermal, hydropower, wind, and hydrogen. 

Loan guarantees up to 75% of eligible project costs are available, and up to 25% of project cost can be funded in the form of a grant. Combined funding of loan guarantees and grants can equal up to 75% of eligible project costs.

A study by Purdue University showed that of 400 surveyed farmers, who run operations larger than $500,000 in annual revenue, nearly one-third are aware of solar leasing opportunities for their farmland, and 29% have engaged in discussions with solar companies about leasing their land.

Larger farms benefit from economies of scale and lower prices from larger solar projects. The USDA program offers small farms an opportunity to better compete and to procure lower-cost renewable energy.

Nexamp has been chosen by Arctaris Impact Investors to develop a community solar installation on 31 acres of land at Saddleback Mountain Ski Resort in Rangely, Maine.

The project is set to be nearly 7.5 MW in capacity, and Saddleback will serve as the project’s anchor tenant. It has not been made public yet how much of the capacity will be open for other subscribers. The project is a part of the sweeping renovations that Arctaris Impact Investors are undertaking at Saddleback, which has been closed since 2015.

Construction on the solar farm is expected to begin in early 2022 and is on track to be generating clean energy for the CMP grid by the start of the 2022-23 ski season. According to Saddleback’s General Counsel, Tom Federle, who led project development, the installation will comprises less than one percent of Saddleback’s real estate, with the development team placing emphasis on having the project harmonize with the mountain’s natural appeal.

The project has achieved an interconnection agreement with Central Maine Power.

In August, Nexamp secured a $240 million equity investment led by Generate Capital, on top of the $440 million in debt financing the company raised in March, bringing its total new funding to $680 million.

The company said it will use the most recent equity investment to expand to more markets. It will also continue to build its workforce to develop additional retail offerings. Nexamp said it has more than 300 employees, tripling its workforce in less than three years. To date, the company has put more than 300 MW of renewable generation into service.

The 76.5 MW Farmington solar project in Maine has entered service, and will supply power to five New England colleges as part of a 20-year power purchase agreement.

The New England College Renewable Partnership (NECRP) said the project led to capital expenditures of around $150 million. It also will generate nearly $17 million in tax revenue over the next 30 years. 

A unit of NextEra Energy Resources built the facility, and Competitive Energy Services operated as advisor to the colleges.

The contract locks in the price of electricity supplied to the schools, offering savings and predictability for budgeting. Amherst, Bowdoin, Hampshire, Smith, and Williams each sourced a portion of the project’s total generation.

Bowdoin College signed up for 5% of the total production, and targets 100% renewable energy to power campus-wide operations by the end of 2023.

Bowdoin has a relatively long history of investing in solar. Its first project developed in 2014 with Solar City was at the time the largest rooftop installation in the state of Maine. The college’s renewable energy push is in conjunction with a longer-term goal of electrifying the campus’s heating load.

Larger projects like this 490-acre facility, which offer lower prices due to economies of scale, are otherwise too large to source by smaller colleges. The NECRP potentially presents a workable model for further solar collaboration in the educational and institutional space.

The approach mirrors the corporate world’s adoption of solar, where companies also sign power purchase agreements on large-scale off-site facilities.

For example,  McDonald’s and eBay signed up to buy energy from the 345 MW Ventress solar project in Louisiana this past August. McDonald’s aims for a 31% reduction in emissions intensity per metric ton of food and packaging across its supply chain by 2030 from 2015 levels. eBay, meanwhile, is working towards achieving 100% renewable energy-powered operations by 2025.

Greenbacker Renewable Energy, through a subsidiary, bought two to-be-built solar projects in Maine from ReneSola Power Holdings.

The projects are the Athens Ridge solar project, a 3.8 MW array set to be constructed in Athens, Maine, north of Augusta, and the Mars Hill solar project, a 2.8 MW array slated for Mars Hill, on the state’s border with Canada.

The Athens Ridge and Mars Hill projects were sold at the notice-to-proceed stage. Greenbacker will complete construction and retain long-term ownership. Construction is expected to start in the first quarter of 2022, with both assets slated to reach commercial operation in the third quarter.

The projects mark the fifth and sixth installations acquired by Greenbacker from ReneSola this year. In the first quarter, Greenbacker bought a pair of the developer’s Utah solar assets, totaling 9.8 MW. The following quarter, it acquired two more pre-operational solar projects in Maine, Richmond Hill, a 2.5 MW installation, and Lebanon Road, a 2.8 MW array.

All four projects will be considered legacy additions to the state’s net energy billing program, which was capped in the second quarter of 2021. The program allows customers to realize savings by offsetting their electric bills either with owned or shared energy projects, like community solar. Those investments, in turn, spur further development.

In addition to the 26% federal solar investment tax credit, many states offer incentives for going solar, with a wide variance in structure and rates paid to homeowners attaching solar to their homes.

Here, pv magazine takes a look at the six New England states, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and the current incentives they offer:

Rhode Island

Net metering: Homeowners’ excess solar generation can be fed back to the grid in exchange for credits on utility bills. Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Growth plan guarantees enrolled customers will receive $0.2965 per kWh exported for 15 years.

Property tax exemption: Customer-owned solar panels may raise the value of the home, but they do not increase property taxes.

Sales tax exemption: Solar is exempt from Rhode Island’s 7% sales tax rate.

CommerceRI Renewable Energy Fund grant: This is a capacity-based payment of $0.85 per watt, with a maximum of $7,000. Average systems generally pay about $4,000-$5,000.

Massachusetts

Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) Program: A declining-block incentive program with 3.2 GW cap for total projects receiving incentives. As more projects apply for the incentive, it moves through tiers of declining values. Customers receive significant incentive rate adders for including energy storage or agreeing to participate in peak-demand load shifting programs. Eligible for customers of National Grid, Eversource, and Unitil only.

Residential Energy Credit: A credit worth up to 15% of the solar array, capped at $1,000.

Sales and property tax exemptions: Customers do not pay the Massachusetts 6.25% sales tax, and do not pay property tax for the increase of home value solar creates.

Net metering: customers of National Grid, Eversource, Unitil are eligible for net metering. Customers can use excess generation to offset utility bills, or they can transfer credits to another participating account within the ISO-NE electrical grid.

Connecticut

Residential Solar Investment Rebate Program: Connecticut Green Bank offers $0.463 per watt of solar installed. Homeowners often receive more than $2,000 in savings through this program.

Energy Conservation Loan Program: Low-to-no interest loans can be taken from the Connecticut state government. Rates land between 0-6% for up to $25,000 and 10 years.

Net metering: Customers are eligible to send excess solar generation to the grid for credit on utility bills. All projects under 2 MW can qualify for net metering.

Sales and property tax exemptions: Homeowners avoid the 6.35% sales tax, and do not pay property taxes for solar.

New Hampshire

Net metering: Customers of Eversource, Liberty Utilities, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative and Unitil are eligible to export excess solar generation in exchange for utility bill credits.

Property tax exemption: New Hampshire residents, in select counties, avoid increased property taxes due to solar. NH does not have sales tax.

Renewable Energy Generation Incentive Program: Projects 10 kW or less can receive credit worth either $0.20 per watt, up to $1,000, or half the cost of their residential solar system.

Vermont

Property and sales tax exemptions: Vermont homeowners do not pay sales tax or property tax for solar.

Net metering: Major utility Green Mountain Power offers $0.1484 per kWh for exported solar energy, less than 100% of the retail price of power in their territory. There is an upfront cost of $110 to add a net meter, and all credits must be used within 12 months.

Green Mountain Power Bring Your Own Device: Customers can receive up to $10,500 towards the purchase of a home battery attached to their solar array.

Maine

Net metering: Maine offers a 1-t0-1 for kWh exported for net metering use. At the end of each calendar year, net metering credits are reset.

PACE loan: Property Assessed Clean energy loans allow for no money down, and rather than making monthly loan payments, customers repay with an annual assessment on property taxes. In Maine, customers can receive PACE loans for up to $15,000 for 15 years at a 4.99% interest rate.

All data sourced from energysage.com, solarreviews.com, and dsireusa.org.

Summit Ridge Energy has completed a 6.3 MW community solar installation in Hermon, Maine, the first project in the company’s 200 MW Maine community solar portfolio to reach completion.

The 6.3 MW installation will serve roughly 850 households and small businesses across the state. The project is also part of a 24 MW portfolio of projects that Summit Ridge is developing through a joint venture with Osaka Gas USA.  The portfolio will be financed in partnership with Foss & Company and Live Oak Bank. Foss & Company will be providing tax equity, and Live Oak Bank is holding long term debt.

In July, Summit Ridge entered a joint venture with Osaka Gas USA Corporation to construct, own and operate over 120 MW of community solar projects throughout the state of Maine. The Foss & Company and Live Oak-financed projects represented a portion of that portfolio. Portfolio inception, if you will.

Those 120 MW are expected to provide approximately 11,000 residential and commercial ratepayers with monthly utility savings.

The project will operate under Maine’s NEB program, which, similar to community solar, allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects.

Simultaneously with the announcement of the Osaka deal, Summit Ridge also acquired a portfolio of three Maine community solar projects from Cianbro, totaling 19.5 MW in capacity.

Summit Ridge Energy has begun construction in Maine on the first installation within a 13-project portfolio acquired from Revision Energy, totalling 44 MW in capacity.

The projects will operate under Maine’s NEB program, which allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects, like community solar, which, in turn, spurs further development of these assets within the state.

All of the projects developed under the portfolio are expected to reach commercial operation between 2022 and 2023. SRE will finance the projects via its dedicated funding platform with Osaka Gas US while Revision handles development, subscription, and construction of the portfolio.

In July, Summit Ridge entered into a joint venture with Osaka Gas USA Corporation to construct, own and operate over 120 MW of community solar projects throughout the state of Maine, with these projects representing the first leg of that commitment.

As for the electricity generated by the projects, Revision has subscribed a multitude of school districts, municipalities, hospitals, and local businesses.

Dynamic Energy Solutions said it reached financial close and begun construction of a 6.6 MW ground-mounted solar array for Albertsons Cos. in Maine, making the project one of the first and largest commercial solar installations in the state.

The system, located north of Portland, is expected to generate more than 8.5 million kWh of energy for the grocery chain’s Shaw’s store locations within Central Maine Power’s service territory.

Dynamic Energy identified and secured an area of land for the project early in 2019. Soltage was brought in as finance partner. Together, Dynamic and Soltage have brought over 8 MW of commercial solar into service.

In addition to project development and disposition, Dynamic is providing engineering, procurement, and construction services. Final commissioning is expected in the fourth quarter.

Dynamic Energy has a number of commercial and institutional projects, including facilities on the Smarties candy factory, Pennsylvania YMCA, and Brandeis University.

Albertsons said it recently expanded its sourcing of renewable energy to more than 70 locations in Virginia and Arizona.

Soltage and Harrison Street, an alternative energy investment firm, have announced joint investment in a 20 MW project portfolio of community solar assets and Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) solar projects located in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maine.

This 20 MW portfolio marks the second investment with Harrison Street for Soltage’s Iris capital vehicle, with the other being the March 2021 announcement that the two would collaborate on a $250 million partnership to fund solar and other clean energy infrastructure, with the ultimate goal of deploying 450 MW of new distributed solar and storage projects across the United States.

All of the assets will be owned by the partnership and operated by Soltage.  The partnership’s first investment after the initial $250 partnership announcement was a 14.5 MW portfolio of solar assets, representing $30 million of project costs.

This portfolio will serve customers including investor-owned utilities purchasing electricity via PURPA contracts, as well as businesses buying solar to meet clean energy goals and secure reduced electricity costs.

Earlier this summer, on July 27, Soltage announced that it raised a $130M debt facility led by Silicon Valley Bank, with that capital set to be used to finance a 110 MW national portfolio of projects across six states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Maine, Illinois, Virginia and Maryland.

Like today’s announcement, the projects included in that portfolio will be community solar assets and PURPA installations, again serving investor-owned utilities and businesses. It’s a bit strange that both announcements have referenced the building of community solar projects, yet none of the potential energy buyers listed are homeowners or those without access to distributed generation of their own.

Unlike today’s announcement, significant progress has already been made on many of the projects in that July portfolio, with soltage reporting that the construction of this portfolio will be staged over the next three quarters, with construction currently underway on ten projects across four states.

A host of utilities across the United States have gone on the anti-solar offensive, using the influence and capital at their disposal to support legislation and institute policies intended on striking down the efficacy of distributed generation. Those are some of the allegations included in a report released by Environment America, the Frontier Group, and the United States Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

The first part of this series looked at the report’s investigation of national anti-solar players, including the organizations and front groups that use cash and influence to advance their anti-solar agenda.

While these groups may be national, their targeted campaigns almost always are focused at the state level. The report looked at a handful of such campaigns, starting on the East Coast.

NERA

Established in Massachusetts in 2013, NERA has a record of opposition to net metering policies in New Hampshire and Maine, according to the report. It gained national notoriety in 2020 for its efforts to substantially roll back net metering in Maine.

In April 2020, the group filed a petition asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to roll back net metering and replace it with gross metering. Under the proposal, utilities would pay solar users a low credit for supplying solar energy to the electric grid, and charge those users a higher electrical rate equivalent to what non-solar users paid for any energy they consume. The group argued that distributed solar energy sales should be regulated under the federal Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act. The petition also would have laid the groundwork to eliminate the state’s ability to promote renewable energy policies that incentivize solar.

The petition ultimately was unanimously dismissed by FERC, after a concerted effort across the renewable landscape to oppose the measure. FERC concluded that NERA failed to prove any harms or controversies that the commission specifically should address. It did not, however, explicitly rule out FERC jurisdiction over solar customer sales to the grid.

Ohio

The report authors point to Ohio as a case study of how aggressive utility anti-solar campaigns have resulted in policy changes that undermine rooftop solar.

First, the authors outlined how utilities succeeded in convincing Ohio lawmakers to weaken the state’s renewable energy standard (RES). In 2014 the RES (which was designed to achieve a 12.5% renewable share by 2025) had its progress frozen for two years and the end date moved back a year.

This, however, pales in comparison to the saga of HB 6. Passed by the state legislature in July 2019, the legislation was referred to by clean energy expert David Roberts as “the worst piece of energy legislation in the 21st century” and “the most counterproductive and corrupt piece of state energy legislation” he had seen.

HB 6, which took effect in October 2019, cut the renewable energy standard target to 8.5% by 2026 and eliminated the standard altogether after 2026. The law also cut utilities’ required savings from energy efficiency from 22% below 2008 levels by 2027 to 17.5% – which most utilities had already achieved – and then allowed them to end their efficiency programs.

Additionally, HB 6 imposed surcharges on ratepayers to bail out two nuclear power plants, which First Energy, an Ohio utility, claimed were losing money; and two coal plants, one in Ohio and one in Indiana, owned by a utility-controlled collective. The effect of the new law was to remove incentives for further renewable energy development and energy efficiency increases in the state while providing over $1 billion to subsidize four uncompetitive power plants.

On March 31, 2021, Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill passed unanimously by the state Senate which revoked HB 6’s nuclear subsidies, though it did include a provision keeping subsidies for the coal plants and maintaining the renewable energy and energy efficiency rollbacks.

Florida

Florida has no renewable portfolio standard, does not allow solar power purchase agreements (PPAs), and requires homeowners to carry general liability insurance for any residential solar power system over 10 kW in capacity. While the state offers net metering, property tax exemptions for renewable energy equipment, and special residential loans for renewable energy property upgrades, the reports authors argued that the state’s overall policy framework is not conducive to rooftop solar growth.

Historically, the authors said, the state’s three investor-owned utilities, Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy, and Tampa Electric Company, have backed campaigns and policy changes which have served as roadblocks to expanding the role distributed solar plays in the state.

The report cited a 2018 study by Integrity Florida, which claimed that the utilities directed more than $43 million to political parties, candidates and committees over the 2014 and 2016 election cycles. That was followed by another alleged $9.2 million doled out in 2020.

The authors argued that this spending is an attempt by the utilities to influence how they are regulated by contributing to  legislators who would, once in office, be in charge of nominating a list of potential regulators for consideration by the governor.

The report also alleges that the utilities purposely delayed connecting new systems to the grid for months, which would cost customers significant money, and that the state’s utilities have backed groups that point out the shortcomings of distributed solar.

South Carolina

The last East Coast state analyzed in the report is South Carolina. The report focused on Dominion Energy South Carolina’s 2020 proposal to state regulators, which would have more than doubled monthly ratepayer service charges, added a $5.40/kW solar subscription fee to solar customers’ monthly electric bills, and cut the net metering credit that customers receive.

Multiple advocacy groups claimed that Dominion’s proposal would have slowed the state’s rooftop solar market. Frank Knapp, president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce said that approval of the proposal would essentially say goodbye to all future residential solar development in the state.

South Carolina regulators unanimously approved an alternative, solar-friendlier bid to keep net metering in place while also gradually transitioning Dominion Energy’s net metering program to an existing time-of-use rate schedule for customers.

Attempts to discourage rooftop solar development aren’t limited to the East Coast. The report touched on action that has occurred west of the Mississippi, even in states where rooftop solar has long enjoyed success as a resource. More on that in the next entry in this series.

Citing local community concerns with the appearance of numerous solar installations in the region, city councilors in Augusta, Maine, have voted to ban development of all large solar energy projects anywhere in the city for the next 180 days.

The ordinance bans the development, construction, and official consideration of any solar energy system 15,000 square feet or larger. Officials have been steadfast in their stance that the moratorium is not the first step in a goal to ban solar projects, but rather an attempt regulate their appearance more strictly, though one councilor did share with local press that he doesn’t “want Augusta to be the solar power capital of Maine.”

Many of the cited community complaints have been in regards to the recently-completed project off Route 3, colloquially referred to as the Board of Trade project. Residents have allegedly taken issue with the 6.3 MW project’s high visibility and have inquired about camouflaging it or other projects.

Since the route 3 project has been completed and has achieved commercial operation, any new solar regulations or ordinances passed will have no effect on its appearance.

In the meantime, the moratorium puts significant stress on local developers working on or delivering projects in the near future, and any developer with a contracted delivery date by the end of the year will be hard-pressed to meet that deadline.

One local developer requested that city councilors cut the moratorium time in half, down to just 90 days, but officials declined to reduce the length of the moratorium to anything less than the proposed 180 days.

Historically, Maine has lagged from a national and regional perspective in its commitment to solar as a resource. That fact has changed recently, however, and the vast majority of the state’s nearly 250 MW of installed capacity has come active since the start of 2020, according to according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).  The majority of this capacity has come from utility-scale solar projects, whereas what little solar the state had prior to 2020 was a more distributed mix of project sizes, per SEIA.

While taking a pause to make sure the right regulations and measures are in place to best serve the community is understandable, a prolonged moratorium could do damage to an industry just now securing a foothold in the region.