PUC counsel urges caution on changing 'single plant' definition in solar bills

Jake, counsel for the Public Utility Commission, told the House Committee on Energy and Digital Infrastructure on April 1 that proposed changes to the legal definition of a “single plant” would limit the commission’s ability to treat co‑located or coordinated solar facilities as a single project for purposes of permitting, compensation and environmental review.

The topic came during testimony on S.50 and related language from H.394. "The single plant definition serves several very important purposes under Vermont law currently," Jake said, adding that the definition determines eligibility for financial incentives such as net metering and the standard offer program and sets capacity thresholds used in review procedures.

The commission’s testimony described repeated situations in which developers tried to segment a larger installation into multiple small registrations to gain higher compensation and streamlined permitting. Jake gave an example in which a single parcel hosted four 15‑kilowatt registrations that together totaled 60 kilowatts; under the registration rules those parcels received higher…