You’ve read 5 articles. To stay updated, consider subscribing to Inside Investigator’s free newsletter. You’ll receive the most important headlines directly in your inbox.
Stay in the know with our free emails
News and investigations you can’t find anywhere else. Subscribe to our free newsletter to get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday and Sunday morning.
Thanks for your support!
Get Inside Investigator’s latest investigative deep dives and daily news in your inbox every Wednesday and Sunday morning.
Inside Investigator
Journalism by humans, for humans.
Connecticut’s legislative Energy and Technology Committee advanced a bill that would require PURA officials to create a pilot program to install solar panels and extend three renewable energy programs at its Committee Meeting on Thursday, March 19.
As written, HB 5340, or “An Act Concerning Renewable Power Generation,” would create a pilot program to subsidize the installation of solar panels in “environmental justice communities,” which are defined as either distressed municipalities or areas where 30% of the population lives below 200% of the federal poverty line.
The law would also require PURA to create successor programs to the Residential Renewable Energy Solutions (RRES), the Non-residential Renewable Energy Solutions (NRES), and the Shared Clean Energy Facilities (SCEF) Programs. The state provides green energy tariffs to compensate residential and non-residential owners of solar panels and other renewable energy sources that feed into the state’s electric grid through RRES and NRES.
The SCEF Program is more complex. Eversource and United Illuminating issue annual requests for proposals to purchase renewable energy credits to construct Class I renewable generation facilities. These projects are meant to provide renewable energy to people whose land, houses, or buildings are not suitable for solar panels or other sources of green energy. After a project is selected, certain residents subscribe to these programs. The subscription needs to be approved by Eversource or UI, and eligibility is based on income. Once the project goes online, subscribers will receive credits on their electric bill.
Get the latest news and investigations straight to your inbox
“This is an extension of existing proven programs that we are refining to make more efficient. We are not adding to public benefits; we are continuing to reduce public benefits for something that should matter a lot to the state of Connecticut going forward,” Rep. Jonathan Steinberg (D-Westport) said. “This is why this bill is so important for me and others—we must be able to control our own destiny and look after ratepayers in the long-term, and that involves more than just price, it involves value, it involves reliability, it involves stability, which are all in danger with the current circumstances.”
The circumstances that Steinberg referenced are the fluctuating costs of oil and gas, and the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to stop the wind farms in Long Island Sound.
Sen. Ryan Fazio (R-Greenwich), who voted against HB 5340, argued that these subsidies will need to end eventually.
“We have been subsidizing solar development on the backs of ratepayers to the tune of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars since the 2000s, since I was in middle school, in this state. There has to be an honest conversation about when those industrial policies end and when industries are expected to stand on their own two feet,” he said. He went on to say, “I truly believe that it is better for industries in the long run to compete on their own two feet, rather than to be ‘Mother may I,’ to the government every five or 10 years for a new subsidy.”
The bill was voted passed through the committee along partisan lines, with 18 Democrats supporting the bill and 8 Republicans opposing it. Now it will be processed by the Legislative Commissioners’ Office before being debated by the Connecticut General Assembly.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise noted, you may republish Inside Investigator articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here are some guidelines for sharing our original publications, including any metadata:
Inside Investigator must be credited with reference to the author and to Inside Investigator, and there must be included a verifiable and effective way to contact you either preceding or succeeding the Inside Investigator shared content. We request that you retain all original links throughout the article (if any), include a visible statement preceding the shared story that reads: “The following article was originally published on Inside Investigator,” and include a link to the original article on the Inside Investigator website.
For shares to social media, please tag Inside Investigator in your posts, or link back to the original article if tagging Inside Investigator is not applicable.
If you intend to share our content on pages hosting advertisements, such advertisements shall not be sold against our content, and there shall be no implication that any donations or revenue from the advertisements is received in support of Inside Investigator.
Our content shall not be used to populate any third-party website(s) and shall not be shared or republished automatically. In the event you would like to revise or edit our original content, including translating out of the original language, or would like to use any images, photographs, illustrations, or video content, please email info@insideinvestigator.org with such request(s) and we will contact you with our decision.
Inside Investigator retains the rights to sell, license, syndicate, and otherwise represent itself as the sole owner of all material found on the Inside Investigator website. Inside Investigator also reserves the right to contact you and request the removal of previously authorized shared Inside Investigator content from any site(s) to which you shared.
If you have any other questions, contact us at info@insideinvestigator.org.
by Alex Appel, Inside Investigator
March 20, 2026
A Connecticut native, Alex has three years of experience reporting in Alaska and Arizona, where she covered local and state government, business and the environment. She graduated from Arizona State University… More by Alex Appel
Your email address will not be published.
Sign in by entering the code we sent to , or clicking the magic link in the email.
https://insideinvestigator.org/privacy-policy/. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Get the best of Inside Investigator directly in your email inbox.
Sending to:
