Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee discusses S57, advances S50 as vehicle for community solar
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Summary
On Feb. 28 the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee spent most of its meeting on S57, a proposal tied to a standard-offer solar program, and voted 5-0 to find S50 favorable, agreeing to use S50 as a potential vehicle to advance community solar policy before crossover.
The Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee met Feb. 28 to discuss two renewable-energy bills and to decide how to proceed on community solar policy ahead of crossover deadlines. Committee members spent the first part of the meeting discussing Senate Bill 57, a proposal tied to restoring or revising a standard-offer program for small-scale photovoltaic projects, and then voted to find Senate Bill 50 favorable, 5-0, with the committee selecting S50 as a possible vehicle to carry community solar language.
Committee members said the goals for S57 include encouraging a diversity of solar project sizes and lowering costs for smaller projects. "My hope, with this bill what it is, you know, that through the standard offer that this would be a way to ensure that there's a diversity of sizes of, photovoltaic systems, going up, but that but that also that those, systems would be cheaper than what might otherwise, get built at that size," said Senator Trevor Watson. Members raised concerns that poorly sited projects could raise costs and stressed the need for a successor program to virtual group net metering through community solar.
Lawmakers and staff asked for more testimony and technical detail before deciding whether to mark up S57. Several senators said they were unsure whether the standard-offer mechanism remains necessary or effective and asked for additional information about how distribution utilities would participate. One member urged upfront siting criteria to reduce post-application disputes: committee discussion repeatedly returned to the need to identify "the right places" for projects so they support the grid rather than increase costs.
After the S57 discussion, the committee took up S50. Lawmakers said S50 is "pretty straightforward" and can serve as a vehicle to attach community-solar language if members reach agreement over the break. "If, you know, we in other words, you know, voted out 1 way or the other that we we get back, but if we had time to put that on because I'd actually like to do more work on 57, frankly, now after crossover because I think there's a lot there that we we could think through and get some bigger things done," one senator said during the discussion about using S50 as a vehicle.
A motion to find Senate Bill 50 favorable carried on a roll call. The clerk recorded votes as: Senator Beck — yes; Senator Balmer — yes; Senator Harvey — yes; Senator Williams — yes; Senator Watson — yes. The committee also selected Senator Williams to serve as the bill reporter.
No formal vote was taken on S57; the committee left that bill for further work and discussed collecting additional testimony and drafting options during the upcoming break. Members noted House-side proposals they wanted to review over the break, specifically H352 (Representative Logan) and H289 (Representative McCoy), which were described in committee as containing related renewable-energy or community-solar proposals.
The committee recessed for a break and planned to reconvene with staff from the Department of Environmental Conservation and other stakeholders at the scheduled time. Committee members said they would try to coordinate drafting over the break and may use S50 or another available vehicle if they can agree on language in time for crossover.
