Georgia Senator seeks to advance bill to introduce community solar development for MUSH

The Georgia General Assembly has until March 29, 2024, to deliberate on a bill that would advance community solar development on municipalities, schools, churches, and nonprofit buildings (MUSH) in the peach state.

“Being able to service cities—that’s a big lift for the industry,” said Steve Butler, Senior Consultant for Conservatives for Clean Energy Georgia, a nonprofit that educates legislatures and the public on the economic benefits of clean energy.

Like states with similar pending legislation, such as Michigan and Ohio, developers are getting a head start in the state.

“They’re (developers) identifying projects and acquiring land—that’s pretty active—with anticipation of the legislation passing. Those sites are being scouted for certain,” Butler said.

Senate Bill 210, The Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2023, was introduced in February 2023 by Senator Jason Anavitarte (R-Dallas), the majority caucus chair, three other Republicans and one Democrat. Georgia has a Republican trifecta; the Republican Party controls the office of the governor and both chambers of the state legislature. The bill is currently being examined by the Regulated Industries and Utilities committee.

The Georgia state government is in the middle of a two-year session which ends at the end of March. All bills are wiped from the docket after the 2024 session and another two-year cycle begins in 2025.

“We have a good legislative effort, but the real play here is potentially with the Georgia Public Service Commission,” said Butler.

Georgia has an elected Public Service Commission that deals with solar issues and all five commissioners are Republican, said Butler. While the legislature trumps them as far as constitutional authority, Butler said they could be encouraged just by the legislation moving to do something on their own.

“That would ultimately be the easiest path to glory,” Butler said. “There’s a couple really good plays to expand community solar that are going to be in the next 12-24 months.”

Georgia currently has a small community solar program administered by Georgia Power, who holds about 70 percent of the market in the state. Separately, the utility is also pushing for a 50 MW carveout for MUSH as part of its broader Clean and Renewable Energy Subscription (CARES) program.

SB-210 claims that it’s in the public’s best interest to encourage private investment in solar resources which will stimulate economic growth and job creation, promote energy resilience, and enable homes businesses, and tax-exempt customers in the state access to solar.

The bill also seeks to modify provisions around net metering laws by requiring net metering offering by utilities that meet a certain renewable energy penetration threshold. The threshold is the point at which a utility has purchased renewable energy from eligible customer generators such that the cumulative generating capacity of all renewable energy sources equals 0.2 percent of its annual peak demand in the previous year. Utilities that have met the threshold on or before July 1, 2023, will be deemed to have met the capacity.

Within three months of that date, the utility will need to file a net metering tariff for customer-sited solar facilities until the cumulative generating capacity of all solar facilities in its service territory equals five percent of the utility’s annual peak demand from the previous year. Once the utility meets the five percent, the commission will commence an evidentiary proceeding to determine the appropriate crediting mechanism for future customer generators apply for net metering, according to the bill.

Utilities will also be expected to file for commission review and approval of a standard interconnection agreement for customer-sited distributed solar facilities that allow them to recover any direct costs associated with interconnecting and administering metering services of a customer generator.

Six months from that date, the utility will need to file a tariff providing for solar meter aggregation and a data access program. The solar meter aggregation is defined as the administrative combination of kilowatt-hour meter readings based on the energy generated from an aggregated solar facility by a solar financing agent to be provided a tax-exempt customer’s electric utility in order to allocate bill credits from one or more aggregated solar facilities to the tax-exempt customer’s accounts.

Aggregated solar facilities will need to stay under 3 MW, serve one or more tax-exempt customers, and be located within the same electric service territory as the customer.

One or more tax-exempt customer will be allowed to enter into an agreement with a solar financing agent, a utility or person whose business includes the leasing, financing, or installation of an aggregated solar facility, for the installation, maintenance, and operation of a solar facility. The agent or their designated subscriber administrator will be allowed to sell subscriptions for the energy generated from the facility.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.


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