Majority of states, D.C. acted on distributed solar policy, rate design in Q1 2018

The North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center (NCCETC) recently released its Q1 2018 edition of The 50 States of Solar, which found that 40 states and the District of Columbia took 149 solar policy actions during Q1 2018.

The report cataloged 49 actions related to residential fixed charge and minimum bill increases, 29 actions related to distributed generation (DG) compensation rules and 21 actions related to DG valuation or net metering studies, making these the top three categories of actions.

“States are expanding their policy and rate design discussions from solar to the broader set of distributed energy resources,” Autumn Proudlove, lead author of the report and Senior Manager of Policy Research at NCCETC, said. “Increasingly, states are undertaking value of DER studies and considering rate designs for customers with solar, energy storage, electric vehicles, and other DERs.”

Legislators considered more than 50 bills related to distributed generation compensation policies and studies, the report stated. The majority of these bills dealt with credit rates for excess generation, net metering or distributed energy resource studies and net metering aggregate caps.

The report also highlights its top five policy developments of Q1 2018, which included Michigan Public Service Commission Staff proposing a net metering successor tariff; the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approving a mandatory demand charge for residential distributed generation customers; NorthWestern Energy publishing its Montana net metering cost-benefit study; utilities in North Carolina and Virginia filing proposed community solar plans; and the Illinois Commerce Commission initiating distributed generation valuation efforts.

“We are seeing a broadening of the conversation across the country, both from a technology and policy perspective,” NCCETC Senior Policy Project Manager Brian Lips said. “Today, states are considering a range of solar compensation structures and program designs, with states acting as laboratories of innovation to explore the range of available options.”