Committee reviews bill to expand standard-offer program and add community solar carve-out

A legislative hearing on S.57 reviewed language to reauthorize Vermont’s standard-offer program, increase the program’s cumulative capacity by 100 megawatts and create a small annual carve‑out for community solar projects, witnesses and legislative counsel said.

Ellen Tarkovsky, Office of Legislative Counsel, told the Natural Resources & Energy committee that “it is reauthorized. It’s adding a new allocation for the standard opera program.” Tarkovsky walked members through draft changes that would increase the program cap from 127.5 megawatts to 227.5 megawatts and raise annual allocation blocks so that, beginning April 1, 2026, 20 megawatts would be released per year for five years (adding approximately 100 megawatts total).

The bill text discussed at the hearing would reserve 2 megawatts of each year’s 20‑megawatt allocation specifically for community solar projects. The draft defines a community solar project as “a solar plant owned by its members or an entity controlled by its members,” and would direct the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to establish a price cap for community solar equal to the price of the highest-cost similarly sized standard-offer project from the preceding 12 months. If the community-solar carve‑out is not fully subscribed, the PUC would reallocate the…