IREC Updates Its Popular State Shared Renewable Energy Program Catalog
IREC’s State Shared Renewable Energy Program Catalog helps policymakers, regulators and other stakeholders understand the details of existing and proposed state shared renewables statutes and program rules. The Catalog covers statewide shared renewable energy or shared renewables programs, which IREC defines as programs where multiple customers share the economic benefits of one renewable energy system via their individual utility bills, typically through bill credits.
To date, 14 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted shared renewables legislation or established programs via commission rulemaking.
Recent changes for shared renewable energy programs in California, Hawaii, Illinois and New York, now featured in the Catalog, include:
- California’s Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing program (SOMAH), which was adopted in December 2017, will run through 2030 and provide up to $100 million in annual incentives to benefit multifamily affordable housing residents.
- Hawaii’s Community Based Renewable Energy program (CBRE) – also finalized in December 2017 – will enable up to 8 megawatts (MW) of community renewables development in Phase 1 of the program and up to 64MW in Phase 2.
- Earlier this month, Illinois adopted two programs that will enable community renewable energy deployment: a Community Renewable Generation Program and a separate program called Solar for All which will incentivize projects that serve low-income customers using more generous renewable energy credit (REC) payments.
- In February, New York increased its community solar project size cap from 2 MW to 5 MW.
For more details on the components of each program, see IREC’s Shared Renewables Policy Catalog.
