Senate Finance reviews H710 proposing narrower "plant" definition and a state decommissioning fund

The Senate Finance Committee on Friday reviewed H710, a bill that would add a statutory definition of "electricity generating facility" for Vermont's renewable energy programs and authorize the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to pursue a state-managed decommissioning fund.

PUC General Counsel Steph Hoffman told the committee the definition in H710 reflects a November PUC report produced after stakeholder meetings required by last year’s Act 38. "We convened proceedings at the commission… and we engaged interested parties," Hoffman said, adding the recommendation pairs changes to the "plant" definition with a decommissioning proposal the PUC developed during that proceeding.

Under the bill’s baseline standard, multiple electricity-generating facilities that use the same technology and are located on the same parcel or contiguous parcels would be treated as a single "plant." That baseline is intended as a screening test for program eligibility and is meant to prevent parties from splitting a single development across parcels to exceed statutory capacity caps for programs such as residential net metering (500 kW), the standard-offer program (about 2.2 MW cap), and REST Tier 2 (up to 5 MW in some cases).

PUC staff…