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Gregory Anderson thought he’d done everything right.
In 2021, the Litchfield resident bought shares in a community solar development from ReVision Energy. With a one-time investment of about $16,000, he was able secure about 2.5 kilowatts, enough to cover nearly all of his household’s power needs. He figured with energy prices ever increasing, buying a lot of energy in bulk would save him money down the line while helping reduce his emissions.
In the years since, his family bought a plug-in hybrid car and switched from propane to heat pumps, driving up the household’s electricity usage. To keep pace, Anderson bought another share last year: about 7.5 kW for more than $25,000.
But a recent change to the state’s net energy billing rules could force Anderson to forfeit one of those shares — and all the energy savings it promised.
“Out of the blue, we get this letter from (Central Maine Power Co.) saying we could only take credits from one solar farm,” Anderson said on a phone call Monday.
The letter, which was received by many customers throughout the state, pointed to a new rule from the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
The rule was born from commissioners’ interpretation of a law passed last year that, among other things, required the commission to “prohibit participation in more than one net energy billing agreement” per residential utility account. Commissioners issued the rule in early February.
“You’re trying to do the right thing by going with alternative energy sources, and you’ve invested a lot of money in it,” Anderson said. “It feels kind of like a penalty.”
Beyond installing panels on their own roofs, Maine residents can earn net energy billing credits — reductions to their electricity bills for generating some of their own electricity — by subscribing to a community solar farm or purchasing a share of a larger solar development.
The troublesome provision was meant to target subscription-based community solar options, in which customers can pay a monthly fee to a company that owns a solar generation site and, in return, get a reduction in their electricity bills.
The Maine Office of the Public Advocate has long warned that customers who enroll in more than one subscription could end up paying for more electricity than they need. The new rule was designed to prevent such overcharging.
But for an unlucky group of about 100-200 Mainers who took a step beyond a subscription by purchasing multiple shares in solar farms, the commission’s interpretation could cost them thousands in energy savings and turn investments of tens of thousands into wasted cash, said Public Advocate Heather Sanborn.
“The rule doesn’t give the utilities any flexibility at all,” Sanborn said. “It could be very harmful to the consumers who are affected. … It’s completely unnecessary.”
Unlike the subscription model, which is more common, customers who purchase their solar shares outright “can’t just walk away,” said Fortunat Mueller, ReVision’s chief executive. He estimated that the new rule would force about 100 of the company’s customers to give up a share.
Solar farm shares can be bought and sold like any asset, but person-to-person sales are fairly rare, and buyers can be tough to find, Mueller said. He added that some customers take out loans to purchase their shares, though he could not say what proportion of ReVision’s customers finance versus paying cash.
“Those customers who have financed these projects are in a particularly tough spot, because that loan is still due every month, but all of a sudden the bill savings goes away,” Mueller said.
Sanford and lawmakers who backed the bill say that rule was never meant to apply to residents who wholly own shares in a community solar development.
In a letter to commissioners last week, seven legislators on the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee said the commission’s interpretation “came as a surprise” to those who had been following the bill’s passage, and that it “does not reflect the intent of the bill sponsor, the (committee) or the Legislature as a whole.”
But without any language to explicitly create an exemption, the regulators at the commission say their hands were tied.
“If that was the intent, unfortunately it is not reflected in the plain meaning of the legislation, perhaps due to an oversight or a drafting error,” Commission Chair Philip L. Bartlett II said during deliberations Monday.
Sanford is confident the error will be straightened out before anyone needs to sell their excess shares.
The potential fix now rests with the Legislature.
Late last month, Rep. Sophie Warren, D-Scarborough, offered a solution in the form of an amendment to another bill currently before the Legislature, LD 1966. That bill seeks to modify some of the language used on electric bills, among other things. (Warren also sponsored last year’s law, which is now in need of fixing.)
Her new measure would explicitly carve out solar generation “in which a customer has an ownership interest.”
The Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee passed LD 1966 along party lines last week. It now awaits a vote by the full Senate and House.
In the meantime, regulators are instructing electric utilities not to enforce the new rule.
The commission on Monday ordered CMP and Versant Power Company to stop issuing customers notices of the new rule. It also recommended the utilities send additional letters clarifying that the new rule won’t be enforced “while the Legislature is examining this issue.”
“Taken together, these steps will ensure that no one with ownership in more than one facility will have their ownership terminated, while giving the Legislature ample time to consider and address the issue,” Bartlett said.
Though they paused enforcement, the commissioners stood by their rule as an accurate reflection of the law.
“We applied the statute as it was written,” Commissioner Patrick Scully said. “I think we did what we were supposed to do, and I certainly look forward to seeing further legislative action.”
Daniel Kool is the Portland Press Herald's cost of living reporter, covering wages, bills and the infrastructure that drives them — from roads, to the state's electric grid to the global supply chains… More by Daniel Kool
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