The New York Public Service Commission will discuss market development mechanisms for distributed solar generation projects beyond the 6 gigawatt-by-2025 target established under the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and reflected in the current funding of NY-Sun incentives. The conference will examine commercial, industrial, and other non-residential projects with a focus on community solar development, following the expenditure of the existing market transition credits, as well as the community credit and community adder allocations. The law requires the state to source 70 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2030. 15-E-0751

The South Carolina Public Service Commission will conduct a virtual public hearing for customers of Duke Energy Carolinas LLC and Duke Energy Progress LLC to gather input on their proposed Solar Choice metering tariff required by the 2019 South Carolina Energy Freedom Act. The companies said that the measure fulfils the goal of the law by eliminating the cost shift associated with net metering to the greatest extent practicable. The proposal includes time-of-use rates and other components, which ensure that the companies appropriately recover the cost to serve net metering customers, resulting in an overall benefit to their systems and non-net metering customers. READ MORE

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities will discuss a proposal on the design and implementation of the Solar Successor Program to replace the legacy Solar Renewable Energy Certificate, or SREC, program, which was closed in April 2020 after attaining the milestone set by the 2018 Clean Energy Act to phase out the initiative. The law directed the closure of the program upon the state’s attainment of 5.1 percent of retail electricity sales from solar generation. Subsequently, the board established an interim Transition Incentive Program to bridge the gap between the SREC program and the successor aimed to create a long-term, durable solar incentive program. The proposal provides preliminary recommendations including calculation of annual megawatt targets and the statutory cost cap, and also launches a stakeholder process to develop a permanent community solar program. QO20020184

The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority is due to receive comments on a straw proposal for an “Innovation Pilots Framework” to support the development of innovative technology applications and programs that have the potential to provide net positive benefits to electric customers. The agency seeks responses from stakeholders and potential project innovators to a series of questions including whether the proposed approach provides a suitable mechanism to source and launch novel customer solutions consistent with a strategic vision document issued in December. The docket is part of a series of reopened proceedings to investigate topics considered integral for the agency’s framework for an Equitable Modern Grid. The framework seeks to foster solutions that address the challenges and opportunities facing the electric sector. The docket will consider lessons learned through the implementation of the Electric Efficiency Partners Program. 17-12-03RE05

The Missouri Public Service Commission is due to receive a report with initial findings on the state’s electric and natural gas utilities’ preparedness and response to the mid-February winter storm that resulted in rolling blackouts and natural gas price spikes. The commission directed its Regulatory Analysis and Customer Experience Departments, in collaboration with agencies within its Industry Analysis and Financial and Business Analysis Divisions, to investigate utilities’ performance and report its findings. The report will detail utilities’ response measures, impacts on customers, and lessons learned. The investigation will also consider analyses performed by the regional grid operators, market monitors, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and any other relevant body. AO-2021-0264

The California Public Utilities Commission will discuss proposals to develop a successor to the net metering program, which credits customer generators for grid-exported power. The commission will determine what inputs are needed to accurately perform a cost-effectiveness analysis. Following workshops held in March, the commission decided that further discussion is needed to facilitate a transparent analysis. The current NEM 2.0 program, established in 2016, requires customer-generators to pay charges to align them closely with other customers than under the original program that provided a full retail-rate bill credit for excess generation. The commission recently presented a set of guiding principles to ensure that a successor to the current program reflects equity, consumer protection, transparency, fair consideration of technologies that meet the definition of renewable generation, and maximum value for customer-sited renewables, among others. R2008020