Washington State House Rep walks through plans to reintroduce community solar bill in 2024
Washington State is turning up the heat on the community solar front as a group of nearly two dozen businesses, non-profits, and environmental advocates band together to advance community solar in the state.
The group, coined Community Solar WA Coalition, is backed by the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA), Olympia Community Solar, Cascadia Renewables, BlueWave, Spark Northwest, the Seattle Housing Authority, and more.
Washington has had a community solar program for several years; however, the program has yielded few projects, despite the state’s commitment to reach 100 percent clean energy by 2045.
“If the state of Washington is going to meet its climate commitment goals—solar will need to play a significant part,” said House Representative David Hackney, in an interview with NPM. “We need to make sure that the state has rules and regulations that are friendly to solar, and we have to encourage utilities to make some big changes in how they do business.”
Last January, Hackney introduced HB 1509, Concerning Fair Access to Community Solar, which proposed an uncapped market and a virtual net metering program. The bill would allow projects to be built up to 5 MW and require each facility to subscribe to at least half the project with low-income subscribers. HB 1509 failed to progress past the House Environment and Energy committee.
Hackney told NPM that he’s committed to reintroducing the bill when the legislature reconvenes in January 2024. Washington has a part-time legislature that meets a few months each year.
“We’re making good progress,” Hackney said. “This is something that I think is going to happen—it’s just a question of when. Both sides need to be willing to make concessions and work together to come up with the best policy for Washington State.”
Community solar in the state is currently governed by HB 1814, run by Washington's utility regulatory board, which limits community solar ownership to utilities, non-profits, and tribal housing authorities. Projects are also limited in size--with the max nameplate capacity of 199 kWh. Projects are incentivized through a grant-style fund, which directs the Washington State University Extension Energy Program to administer an incentive program that provides up to USD 20m in payments to low-income subscribers, low-income service providers, tribal agencies, or public agencies. The program, which is also voluntary for utilities to participate in, went into effect in July 2022 and is intended to run until 2033—unless intercepted by another bill.
According to Hackney, Puget Sound Energy (PSE), the state’s largest utility, and various utilities across the state have voiced concern on how the current proposal will provide a fair billing system and rate at which the utilities purchase back the electricity. Hackney has been working with independent organizations over the intersession to determine what a fair price would be.
“We’re hoping that the organization will come up with a fair number that both the utility and advocates can live with,” Hackney said. “So, it’s up to the state to help shepherd along the investor-owned utilities.”
Washington has a Democratic trifecta. The Democratic Party controls the office of governor and both chambers of the state legislature. The House of Representatives has a 58 to 40 Democratic majority, according to Ballotpedia.
While Hackney doesn't expect many Republican will join in and said that some Democrats are more sensitive to the business issues than the environment, he's still confident he will be able to garner enough support, especially with the backing of Community Solar WA Coalition, to get the bill passed.
*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.
New Project Media (NPM) is a leading data, intelligence and events company dedicated to providing origination led coverage of the renewable energy market for the development, finance, advisory & corporate community.