HB2253 – Providing fair access to community solar.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Hackney (D; 11th District; Renton) (Co-Sponsors Doglio, Ryu, Orwall, Duerr, Berry, Ramel, Paul, Springer, Macri, Bergquist, Pollet, and Tharinger, Ds)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment & Energy on January 16th. Still in committee at cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6113 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Summary –
The bill would raise the maximum size of community solar projects from 1,000 kW to 5,000 kW and allow larger projects with a utility’s approval.  (Projects larger than 1,000 kW would have to be built with prevailing wage labor.) On a sizable list of preferred sites, including rooftops, impervious surfaces, and industrial areas, projects could be built on the same parcel as another community solar project. They’d have to have at least three subscribers, and a single customer couldn’t own or subscribe to more than 49% of a project’s capacity. At least half of a project’s capacity would have to be taken by low-income subscribers, low-income service provider subscribers, or both. After 10 years the UTC or a public utility’s governing board could lower the required percentage of low -income subscribers provided it wasn’t made lower than the utility’s percentage of low-income ratepayers. (“Low income” would be defined by the UTC, but could not be more than 80% of area median household income or 200% of the Federal poverty level, adjusted for household size. The bill allows using a number of methods like subscribers’ enrollment in other low income programs to simplify certifying their eligibility.) Low income subscribers would be exempt from any program administrative fees. Any renewable energy credits generated by a project would have to be retired for the benefit of the subscribers.

The bill would provide net-crediting for community solar, including both the community solar subscription cost and a community solar bill credit on the subscriber’s electric bill. (An electric utility could impose a net-crediting fee on the community solar project manager, capped at one percent of the subscription fee.) It would shift the management of projects from “community solar companies” to “community solar project managers”, allowing nonprofits, individuals, and small businesses to fill that role, and would remove the current provisions allowing the UTC to not enroll companies without adequate financial resources or adequate technical competency to provide the proposed service as project managers. There’d still have to be a performance bond of a suitable size for the project, but it couldn’t be set “in such a manner as to preclude” these new managers from participating. The bill would no longer require projects on tribal lands or Federal tribal trust lands to be administered by tribal housing authorities.

The UTC would set the value of credits, taking into account:
(i) The value of the electricity;
(ii) The value of the project to transmission and distribution capacity, deferred transmission and distribution investments, deferred generation investments and added generation capacity, voltage, reduced system losses, reduced line losses, and ancillary services;
(iii) The value of the project to grid reliability and resilience;
(iv) The value of environmental attributes, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, methane leakage reductions, public health, and energy security; and
(v) Other factors the commission determined were associated with locally produced electricity.
The UTC would be required to add some unspecified additional value for community solar projects when the majority of the project’s capacity was subscribed by low-income subscribers or low-income service provider subscribers; the project was owned by or served tribal communities; and it incorporated energy storage. The value  of credits would have to be updated biannually or annually, and would include an annual escalator. Credits would be carried forward on a customer’s bill as long as the account existed rather than expiring at the end of each year. However, the UTC or a public utility’s governing body would be able to adopt a different rate for crediting a subscriber’s bill if they had good cause to do that. As far as I can see, the subscription rates will be up to the project managers.

The UTC would develop other specified rules for community solar projects in private utility areas including modifying existing interconnection standards, fees, and processes as needed to facilitate their efficient and cost-effective interconnection,  ensure that the interconnection customer pays the reasonable costs, and ensure that interconnections are designed, engineered, and completed in accordance with good utility practice. The rules would also require each investor-owned utility to efficiently connect a community solar project to its electrical distribution grid, not discriminate against facilities or subscribers, and  provide for subscribers that receive utility allowances. The Commission would have to have at least two meetings with representatives of specified stakeholders before adopting the rules. Public utilities could adopt the UTC’s rules, create their own if they were compatible with the bill’s requirements, or decide not to participate in the program.

Unsubscribed energy would be carried on the project’s account until the end of the following calendar year and could be allocated to subscribers at any time during that period. After that any undistributed bill credit would be compensated to the project manager.

There’d be reviews of the program by the UTC after five and ten years, with reports to the Legislature.