TRENTON, N.J. and WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) released highly anticipated guidelines for the state’s Competitive Solar Incentive Program (CSI). The new program design details will help ensure New Jersey continues to make progress on clean energy and offer a positive path forward for competitive solar and storage deployment in the Garden State.

Following is a statement from Sean Gallagher, vice president of state and regulatory affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA):

“SEIA is pleased that the BPU took significant parts of the solar industry's comments into account in its final design of the Competitive Solar Incentive (CSI) program. The guidelines released today establish a competitive solicitation process for 300 megawatts (MW) of annual large-scale solar development in New Jersey, as well as targeted procurement of 160 MWh of energy storage paired with grid-scale solar per year.

“The structuring of the CSI program will ensure that a range of competitive solar project types can participate, despite potentially different project cost profiles. SEIA and its members are evaluating the program's construction and siting requirements, including new standards for pollinator-friendly ground-mounted projects and various land development restrictions. Establishing a workable siting process is critical for the solar industry to achieve the CSI program’s goal for 1,500 MW of large-scale solar capacity by the end of the decade."