Residential solar market heats up while siting debates cloud commercial projects

RESIDENTIAL SOLAR DEVELOPMENT has exploded amid rising electricity rates, with local companies like Evergreen Solar seeing unprecedented demand. But commercial solar development remains stifled by local siting issues. Pictured is a recent rooftop solar installation by Evergreen Solar in Cranston. /COURTESY EVERGREEN SOLAR

PROVIDENCE – The phone hasn’t stopped ringing lately at Evergreen Solar Inc.’s Pawtucket office.

And Brian Fabiano, co-president, doesn’t expect it to quiet down anytime soon.

Soaring electricity prices are heating up Rhode Island’s residential solar market like never before, and his company is among those reaping the benefits.

“We’re seeing three times the amount of customers this summer than we did a year ago,” he said.

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But the sun isn’t shining so brightly for the developers who specialize in sprawling solar fields for commercial and community use, and say red tape at the state and local level is holding them back.

It’s not just Rhode Island. The same scenario is playing out nationwide, with the residential solar market nationwide experiencing its strongest activity ever in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Solar Energies Industry Association’s Solar Market Insight Report. However, first-quarter solar installations across all types of projects were down 52% over the prior quarter, driven by declines in commercial and utility solar activity. While the report cited supply chain delays and shipping problems as the primary reasons why large solar arrays were becoming harder to complete, local companies say the biggest roadblocks have to do with state and local policies around where they can build their projects, as well as delays in connecting to the grid.

A new law based on legislation approved in the 2022 legislative session  – which became official without Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s signature – highlights the tension between large-scale solar developers and the cities and towns that would host their projects. The law, which passed thanks to legislative maneuvering aimed at circumventing the original opposition in a Senate committee, prevents cities and towns from charging higher property tax rates on land where renewable energy projects like solar arrays are built. 

Proponents, including solar developers Revity Energy LLC and Green Development LLC, say the legislation is simply a clarification of a 2017 law establishing rules around solar taxation which some town tax assessors had not been following. But the R.I. League of Cities and Towns fought back, insisting in written testimony that it was unfair to give special tax treatment to renewable energy projects when any other development built on open land would be subject to higher property tax rates once the project was finished.

The conflict over the new law is the latest in a series of tensions over the large-scale solar arrays that began taking over open space in cities and towns across the state several years ago. While the new tax law is important to ensuring predictability in the budgeting process for companies planning these costly projects, it doesn’t solve the biggest roadblocks to growing the state’s large-scale solar industry, said Nicholas Nybo, senior legal counsel for Warwick-based Revity Energy.

“The two big bottlenecks for us are siting and interconnection costs,” Nybo said.

The pandemic hasn’t helped either. While Revity, formerly known as Southern Sky, has seen its work increase despite COVID-19, others have not been so lucky. 

Indeed, the state saw employment across renewable energy industries, including solar, fell 15.5% from 2019 to 2020 – the most recent data available – marking the first decline since 2014, according to the state’s Clean Energy Jobs Report. While the report anticipated a resurgence in renewable energy jobs as the pandemic subsided, the growth has not been spread equally between residential and commercial solar.

“We’ve gotten sucked into some additional permitting reviews that really held things up,” admitted Anthony Baro, owner of E2SOL LLC. For that reason, the solar energy developer and supplier has concentrated primarily on smaller-scale ground-mounted solar arrays for local businesses, and a small amount of residential.

Despite a narrower focus, his company has its hands full with home and business owners requesting proposals on potential solar projects. Baro said his company is on track to install 2 megawatts worth of solar this year – double the amount done last year. 

“In the 12 years of this business, this is the biggest growth we’ve ever had,”  he said.

Baro chalked up the solar surge to federal tax credits which are set to diminish from 26% to 22% next year and increasing demand for alternative electricity sources, thanks in part to adoption of electric vehicles.

That electricity prices are also soaring, with predictions that the already steep rates will grow even more expensive later this year, also has customers considering alternatives.

“Homeowners are really looking at their utility bills now,” said Christopher Kearns, assistant director for special projects for the R.I. Office of Energy Resources. “Five or 10 years ago, energy savings was not at the top of the list, but now, people are much more mindful of that.”

ISO New England Inc., a regional nonprofit which oversees most of the area’s electric power distribution, named future wholesale and retail electricity costs as one of several drivers of potential solar growth in a 2022 report forecasting the industry’s future. Other factors include state financial incentives and programs for different types of solar projects, such as virtual net metering and community solar projects.

Rhode Island’s caps and developer reimbursements for these types of projects are so limited that one developer, ISM Solar Development LLC, has turned its attention elsewhere, said Michael Lucini, company vice president. The East Providence company made a name for itself by developing the state’s first community solar array, in Burrillville, along with a handful of other large-scale solar arrays across the state. But the tariffs the state pays to developers through its Renewable Energy Growth program for these projects are limited, forcing the company to look outside the Ocean State for better opportunities.

“Unless something new happens in Rhode Island legislatively to expand community solar or net metering, we are pretty much not developing there any more,” Lucini said.

Fabiano, meanwhile, is looking to continue growing his company to meet the surging demand for residential solar projects in Rhode Island, having already increased staff more than twofold in the last year, from six to 15 employees.

“I think we’ve pretty much hit that tipping point in terms of mass adoption of solar, and we are ready to scale up accordingly,” he said. 

Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Lavin@PBN.com.

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