A state court has handed a preliminary legal victory to a business owner in a fight over the cost of connecting solar projects to the electric distribution system.
- The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission had objected to the business owner’s lawsuit on procedural grounds.
- But in a ruling last week, Commonwealth Court overruled the objections, allowing the case to proceed on the substance.
- “That means we get to go to the meat of the case, which is great, because that’s the strongest part,” said the business owner, David Hommrich, president of Pittsburgh-based Pennsylvania Microgrids LLC.
- A PUC spokesperson declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
What’s the issue: One is how so-called interconnection costs are levied — against individual projects or against utility ratepayers as a whole.
- The second is the distinction between a state law encouraging renewable energy and the regulations adopted by the PUC to make it happen.
- Hommrich contends that the PUC has misconstrued the law — the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act — so as to allow utilities to recover costs from the solar projects themselves.
- But the law, he argues, says the costs “shall” be recovered from ratepayers, leaving no wiggle room.
- Hommrich is undertaking several commercial-scale solar projects, each generating less than three megawatts of electricity and connecting directly to the distribution system.
- Utility-scale projects generate significantly more power and connect to the regional grid.
What’s the cost: A project could incur a bill of more than $1 million to cover the cost of improvements to the distribution system, according to the court ruling
- Hommrich argues the bills often reflect an effort by utilities to recover the cost of deferred maintenance.
What’s next: PUC has until the end of the month to respond to Hommrich’s lawsuit.
- The lawsuit is the second by Hommrich over PUC regulations.
- In the late 2010s, he successfully pressed a challenge to rules on net metering, which allow utility customers to earn money if their renewable energy installations generate more power than they need.
- The case hinged on whether a commercial-scale solar project had to consume some of the power it was generating in order to qualify for net metering.
- The state Supreme Court ruled that it did not.
The trend: Solar developers statewide have had issues with interconnection, according to Matt Mahoney, government affairs director for the Pennsylvania Solar Center in Pittsburgh.
- To get a clear handle on them, the center is planning a survey, Mahoney said.
- The results could point to potential policy changes that make the process more efficient.
- “It would seemingly fall in line with the governor’s interest in expediting the speed of business in Pennsylvania,” Mahoney said, referring to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s efforts to modernize and streamline state permitting and application processes.
