On October 13, 2017, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) filed an amended draft regulation with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. Pursuant to Chapter 251 of the Acts of 2014 and Chapter 188 of the Acts of 2016, the draft regulations add renewable thermal, fuel cells, and waste-to-energy thermal to the Massachusetts Alternative Portfolio Standard (APS). The filing follows two rounds of public hearing and comment periods occurring in the summers of 2016 and 2017. The draft regulation and accompanying guidelines are available on the DOER’s website here.
In response to stakeholder comments, the DOER made several revisions in the filed regulations. A brief summary of these changes is provided here, but the full redlined version is available for review here.
- Woody Biomass: revised definitions and requirements, including fuel specification and performance requirements
- Liquid Biofuels: reorganized quarterly caps to be distributed during each year and aligned requirements for Eligible Liquid Biofuels with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)
- Compost Heat Exchange Systems: added compost heat exchange systems as an eligible Renewable Thermal Generation Unit
- Fuel Cells: revised efficiency threshold and modified eligibility for behind-the-meter, electric only, fuels cells to those interconnected to the Massachusetts electric grid
- Multipliers for Non-Emitting Technologies: added multiplier for compost heat recovery systems and revised multipliers for intermediate and large, partial air source heat pump systems
- Combination of Funding Provision: removed the combination of funding provisions and increased the maximum combination of funding percentage from DOER or any other state agency to 80%
In addition to the foregoing, the DOER made several technical edits and clarifications to reconcile language inconsistencies in the regulation and Guidelines. The DOER’s announcement of the filing is available here.
SRECTrade will continue to monitor the progress of the APS regulations and will provide updates as they are made available.
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