Solar agents have cautioned against a movement to reevaluate US rules that have led utilities’ compulsory renewable purchases for decades, setting the scene for a coverage clash.
Recent proposals by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reform the so-called PURPA Act risk putting the brakes on competition, US solar body SEIA said last week.
Founded in 1978, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act has from the years because mandated public utilities to secure energy from small manufacturers, described as qualifying facilities (QFs).
Regulator FERC is currently suggesting to decrease the maximum capacity brink — from 20MW to 1MW — for QF jobs to have the ability to gain from compulsory energy purchases by utilities.
The proposed shift, lawyers believe, would ease most utilities from organised wholesale markets from procuring energy from QFs above the 1MW capacity markers.
“QFs larger than 1MW wouldn’t longer be presumed to lack nondiscriminatory access to markets,” Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld stated in a current policy note.
FERC has justified the move by pointing in the”maturation” currently reached by small power producers, a market it claims is now”better and improved known”.
‘Not a fledgling industry anymore’
For its part, US PV body SEIA has spent weeks claiming PURPA protection remains”crucial” to shield independent solar manufacturers from some utilities'”monopoly” ambitions.
Speaking after the new FERC proposals, the solar association urged the regulator to rethink the”most damaging parts” of its draft document.
“Rather than focusing on PURPA’s aim of ensuring competition, this proposal would have the effect of dampening competition and allowing broadcasts to strengthen their monopoly status, to the detriment of customers,” SEIA’s regulatory events VP Katherine Gensler said in a statement.
FERC’s aims to weaken renewable purchase obligations have been apparent for years. “Renewable generation is not a fledgling industry anymore…[it] no more has to be supported by PURPA,” the regulator maintained in 2016, as it initially introduced its review into the Jimmy Carter-era legislation.
The revision it proposed last week could pile further requirements on QFs, forcing them to establish commercial viability and financial support for projects before they may be deemed eligible for compulsory utility purchases.
For US Solar, the PURPA set back marks a bleaker turn of events after the industry helped settle a dispute using a Michigan utility, freeing a 584MW PV pipeline from years of standstill over obligations under the act.
