Today, the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) announced the Emergency Regulations for the Solar Carve-out program. Market contributors expected the program to reach its 400MW cap sometime in 2014, yet on May 29th the DOER announced the Massachusetts SREC program surpassed its 400MW cap. Today’s announcement outlines MA’s solar development rules under the existing program until the DOER finalizes the second SREC program.
These emergency regulations are consistent with the criteria outlined at the DOER’s June 7th meeting. A summary of these new regulations are provided below and more details can be found in the DOER’s letter to Solar Carve-out Stakeholders here.
Projects 100kW or less will be qualified under the current program as long as they have received Authorization to Interconnect by December 31st
- If the second SREC program is not completed by December 31st these system can become registered anytime prior to the effective date of the new program
Projects over 100kW must have received a signed Interconnection Services Agreement (ISA) by June 7th and must have a Receipt of Interconnection by December 31st
- Project ISA’s dated no later than 6/7/2013 must be submitted to the DOER by July 5th
- Projects may be granted extensions until June 30, 2014 if they can demonstrate at least 50% of their construction costs are expended by December 31, 2013
- Projects can also be granted an extension if they can demonstrate that the missing Authorization to Interconnect is due to a delay from the local distribution company
A current status on the existing Solar Carve-out Program as well as a list of projects that have received their Statement of Qualification under the existing program can be found here. If large projects are listed as pending on the DOER’s Qualified Projects List they have one week from today to make sure all the necessary documents are in order. The DOER will announce the final qualified projects list July 15th 2013.
These rules will take effect immediately, but are not yet permanent. The DOER has 90 days to ensure these regulations meet the administrative procedure law and will soon announce a plan for a public hearing and comment period as part of that procedure. The DOER will announce the new total MW program cap for the first SREC program in July 2014.
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