HB2297 – Requiring solar systems on certain new school buildings over 50,000 sq.ft. when the State provides the funding.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Orwall (D; 33rd District; Kent) (Co-Sponsors Hackney, Duerr, Berry, Ramel, Goodman, Riccelli, Simmons, Pollet, and Doglio, Ds.)
Current status – Scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on the Capital Budget at 8:00 AM on Thursday January 18th.
Next step would be – Action by the committee.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
It seems to me that the bill currently says schools must notify OSPI about “qualifying systems”, but they won’t be able to know if they’re actually considering a qualifying system until after the agency does a cost benefit analysis, and OSPI isn’t supposed to do that analysis until after it’s notified of a project.

Summary –
The bill would have public schools planning to construct a building that was over 50,000 square feet (and that the building code required to have a solar zone) notify the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction; they’d provide the estimated cost of permitting, purchasing, and installing a qualifying solar energy system, a comparison of the proposed system’s capacity to the school campus’ anticipated electrical consumption. and the electrical consumption of investments in their 10-year capital plans and anticipated improvements required to comply with the State’s energy-related building standards. (A qualifying system would have to maximize buildings’ or sites’ solar potential without exceeding the school campus’ anticipated electrical consumption and have an estimated positive net present value.)

OSPI would provide technical assistance to public schools for estimating a project’s costs and scope, and perform a cost-benefit analysis for each project included in a notification, comparing the state’s investment to the value produced by the project over a period of at least 25 years, and estimating whether it would result in a positive net present value over the period of analysis.

OSPI would develop a program to provide grants to cover the costs of installing systems on buildings that were required to provide solar zones by the building code. The agency would also estimate the cost of implementing the bill before each fiscal biennium, and request appropriations for the cost estimates. The first of these requests would be due by September 30, 2024. The Superintendent would award these grants if funds were specifically appropriated for them.