Two bills that would introduce a shared solar program to Appalachian Power customers and expand the availability of Dominion Energy’s existing program cleared a House subcommittee on Tuesday, both on 6-3 votes.
Shared solar, or community solar, allows a customer to buy electricity from a solar company and receive credit for it on their electric bill without needing to have solar panels of their own.
Advocates say it can help electricity customers save money and access solar energy when they otherwise would not be able to, but electric utilities are concerned about non-participating customers picking up the cost of those savings.
“Not only do they result in solar generation getting pumped into the state’s grid, they also generate direct bill savings for subscribers and produce ongoing tax revenues for local governments as well as helping landowners diversify their revenues,” Charlie Coggeshall, Mid-Atlantic regional director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, said of shared solar projects when speaking before the subcommittee Tuesday.
The coalition is a national trade association representing more than 100 solar companies, businesses and nonprofits.
House Bill 108, sponsored by Del. Rip Sullivan Jr., D-Fairfax County, would establish a shared solar program for Appalachian Power, which with nearly 500,000 customers is the second-largest electric utility in the state behind Dominion Energy and the largest in Southwest Virginia. It now heads to the full Labor and Commerce Committee.
Jon Amores, state government affairs manager for Appalachian Power, told the subcommittee that the utility has a neutral position on the bill but credited the work that had been done for creating a “workable” shared-solar program for the utility’s service territory.
The version of Sullivan’s House Bill 106 that now also heads to the House Labor and Commerce Committee would increase the maximum size of Dominion’s shared solar program from 200 megawatts of generation capacity — most of which has been awarded to various solar developers — to 350 megawatts.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
The bill includes incentives for building shared-solar projects on brownfields, landfills and rooftops.
It also directs the State Corporation Commission to reevaluate the minimum monthly bill that shared solar program subscribers must pay no matter how much energy they consume.
That minimum bill, currently around $62, has been a point of contention. Dominion has said shared solar subscribers should pay their fair share toward electricity distribution and transmission, while shared solar proponents argue that the current minimum is too high to make shared solar cost-effective for anyone except low-income subscribers, who are exempt from it.
“We think this bill does insert really good language into that minimum bill section directing the commission to consider the benefits of these facilities when setting the minimum bill,” said Josephus Allmond, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
More than a dozen people spoke in favor of the Dominion-related bill. While just four people spoke in favor of the Appalachian Power bill, conversation during the subcommittee hearing suggested that the Dominion bill’s supporters also supported the Appalachian bill.
Nobody spoke in opposition to either bill.
James Curd of Fishersville told the subcommittee that his family leased a portion of their land several years ago for a shared solar project. It only takes up about 12 acres, and having it helps the family resist pressure to sell their land for housing development while also maintaining the area’s agricultural character.
“This project provides our family with a steady revenue for decades and it’s far greater than what we could ever make farming it,” Curd said.
