House committee debates H.394’s single‑plant definition as it walks through renewable energy bill

Members of the Vermont House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure on April 10 discussed H.394, a miscellaneous bill that would revise several statutes governing renewable energy generation, concentrating most of their time on proposed changes to the definition of a “plant” that would affect how co‑located projects are treated.

The committee spent the bulk of its meeting on section 3’s new single‑plant language, with Ellen Jankowski, legislative counsel, describing the bill as “a collection of different provisions related to renewable energy” and warning that the proposed change to the plant definition "has been litigated multiple times and may be the subject of litigation currently." Jankowski said the new definition would treat co‑located facilities as separate plants when each has separate generators, inverters and production meters, and would cap co‑located independent technical facilities at 500 kilowatts cumulative for net‑metering eligibility.

The change under discussion would alter the current test, which looks at shared infrastructure and other factors such as common ownership and contiguity of…