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Falmouth sustainability staff details solar queue, DPU caps and 10 MW municipal allocation
Summary
At the Aug. 24 workshop the town's sustainability staff explained DPU and ISO New England caps, municipal 10-megawatt allocation (3 MW installed, ~7 MW remaining), and recommended prioritizing municipal rooftop and wastewater-site solar plus battery storage.
Stephanie (identified in the meeting transcript as the town's sustainability presenter) gave a technical briefing on solar policy, grid constraints and the town's pipeline of municipal renewable projects at the Select Board's Aug. 24 strategic workshop.
She told the board the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) lifted a two-year restriction on systems larger than 25 kilowatts but that infrastructure and allocation caps remain. "DPU... lifted restrictions," she said, and cautioned that although the DPU's two-year hold was lifted, private project caps and Eversource's interconnection fees can still delay or raise the cost of projects.
On municipal capacity, the presenter said every Massachusetts municipality received a 10-megawatt allotment for renewables; the town's landfill array counts for about 3 megawatts against that total. "We have 7 megawatts left that we can build for the town," she said. Staff listed town projects in the queue: new and expanded rooftop arrays at the veteran center and fire stations, water-treatment and senior-center roofs, and a proposed large ground-mounted array at the wastewater treatment facility (a candidate to capture a big share of the remaining municipal allocation).
The presenter recommended prioritizing rooftops and carport canopies to avoid cutting trees and suggested battery storage (containerized or distributed Powerwall-style units) to increase reliability. She cautioned the board to treat solar as a program that requires ongoing regulatory monitoring because caps, net-metering rules, and interconnection fees change frequently.
Next steps: staff said they will continue vetting specific municipal sites (wastewater facility identified as a key candidate) and will return cost estimates and PPA/ownership options for capital planning and for use of the remaining municipal 10-MW allotment.
