This spring, REV successfully pushed for legislation requiring the Public Utility Commission (PUC) to recommend changes to the definition of “plant” in Vermont statute that would make it easier, more predictable, and more cost-effective to co-locate solar projects on the same or adjoining parcels. The PUC recently released a draft recommendation that makes great strides toward achieving that goal.
The PUC’s proposal focused on using objective characteristics to determine when co-location would be permitted and rightly rejected criteria proposed by the Public Service Department that related to preferred siting and grid constraints that would only apply to the second (or subsequent) facility built on a parcel.
The PUC’s proposal could be further improved by removing restrictive aggregate capacity limits to provide greater flexibility in locating Tier II resources. This change, which is detailed in REV’s filing to the PUC and which we believe is consistent with delivering Tier II distributed generation benefits, would provide the best outcomes for ratepayers and land use conservation. Read REV’s full filing for more information about this change and additional clarifications that REV requested to the current PUC proposal.