SOLAR TODAY - September/October 2011

view from the states

Solar and Utilities

Compiled by Mike Koshmrl, Associate Editor

State and local policies may provide direction, but when it comes to solar incentives, it’s the utility companies that have to execute.

until recently, most utilities simply awarded cash incentives for distributed projects — either through rebates for new installations, or by rewarding electric production with feed-in tariffs (Fits) or solar renewable energy credits (srecs). in 2010, 30 utilities broke from convention by installing 140 megawatts (mw) of solar projects they owned outright. that’s a 300 percent increase from 2009. centralized projects also increased by 500 percent, to 226 mw.

utilities come in many different shapes and sizes, and depending on the state are subject to different solar “carve-outs” under renewable portfolio standards (rPss). investor-owned utilities (ious) often get different rules than member-owned co-ops and municipal utilities. the policy disparity has a significant impact. in 2010, the top 10 investor-owned utilities installed an average of 28 watts of solar per customer. For municipal and cooperative utilities, respectively, it was 22 and 12 watts per customer. thus, we’ve reported solar progress here by utility category.

*Data taken from Solar Electric Power Association’s 2010 SEPA Annual Utility Solar Rankings report. The 2010 report accounted for 99 percent of the annual and 96 percent of the accumulative national solar market.