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New Solar Incentive Program - DOER Final Slides & SEIA Press Materials 2/1/17

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Hi All,

Here’s the slide deck (attached & link below) from yesterday’s presentation on the new solar incentive program, now called the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART).

final-program-design-1-31-17.pdf

A couple of items to note:

1)     The MA Department of Energy Resources (DOER) is working to finalize the emergency regulations by early March for formal publication, so that gives us another month to press for changes. After publication, there will also be formal hearings and a comment period.

2)     And while this was described yesterday as the “final” proposal, it became clear during the presentation that the DOER does not have absolutely every detail locked down yet.  They will still be making changes at the margins. So we will be talking about prioritizing key issues on next week’s state committee call. A small group of us are getting together to identify issues & begin developing a plan.

3)     Relatedly, now more than ever, it’s important for the solar industry to come to DOER with unified positions. So we’ll also be working closely with our other industry colleagues to advocate common positions.

4)     As expected, yesterday, DOER also announced the extension of the SREC II program. That’s good news, but DOER threw us two curveballs. First, they announced an additional reduction in the SREC factor of ~10 percent. See slide 46. Second, they announced that projects would need to be mechanically complete by the beginning of the new program, which seems to ensure only smaller projects would be completed in this timeframe.

We worked with the other industry groups and Vote Solar to develop a press response to yesterday’s announcement. We focused on the extension, and praised the Baker Administration for ensuring continuity. But we had to make a number of last minute changes to adjust for the two somewhat troubling aspects of the new program and the press response is more muted than the original version.

The release can be found here: https://seia.us/2kdMDw4

We will convene as a full state committee at the regular time next week on Tuesday at 1 pm. I’ll have some materials out in advance. Please come prepared with questions.

Thank you.

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