HB1046 – Requires private utilities to buy power from community solar projects, credit participants’ bills, and make 40% of that power available for use by low-income consumers and service providers. (Dead)
Prime Sponsor – Representative Bateman (D; 22nd District; Olympia) (Co-sponsor Duerr – D)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Environment and Energy January 12th. Executive session scheduled but no action taken February 4th and 5th.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
Community Solar Washington has a flyer about the bill.

Comments –
All three of the private utilities testified in opposition to the bill, starting at one hour into the hearing. They argued that it doesn’t place any limits on the size or location of projects or require utility approval of them, that utilities would have to buy power from projects that didn’t have enough subscribers, that any extra costs that might involve as well as startup costs and undefined operating expenses would be shifted to ratepayers, that any net metering unfairly lets solar owners avoid paying the share of the system’s fixed costs that’s included in charges for the kWhs they would be paying for except for the net metering credits they’re receiving, and that it’s unfair that the bill’s requirements only apply to private utilities. They prefer the compromises embodied in the community solar bill that passed last session, but was vetoed because of pandemic fiscal concerns, HB2248.

Summary –

Requires private utilities to buy power on contracts for at least 20 years from community solar projects certified by the Utility and Transportation Commission, to make 40% of that power “available for use” by low-income consumers and service providers, and to credit participants’ bills with their share of the revenue from a project’s power production at the retail rate.

The UTC is to create rules for how projects can qualify for the program. These must at least minimize the shifting of costs from the program to ratepayers that don’t own or participate in a project; incentivize customers to participate; protect participants from undue financial hardship; and protect the public interest.

A project must have at least one system in a utility’s Washington service area, and ownership of a project or participation in one is limited to customers in that area. Their annual returns are limited to their average annual consumption of electricity. (Any revenue above that is to be used by the utility in support of low-income customers or service providers.)

The UTC may set the rates at which a utility buys power from a project and credits participants’ bills for their shares of that production, as well as the rates at which it buys any unsubscribed power. These must allow a utility to recover all its prudent costs for starting up a project or modifying it, as well as any costs it incurs as a result of a power purchase agreement with a project. The associated renewable energy certificates may belong to the utility, or be retired on behalf of the project participant.

Details –
The bill simply amends the section on the previous rules about engaging in business and registering with the UTC for community solar companies  (RCW 80.28.375) to apply to the new community solar project managers it creates. (The production credit program those rules applied to has reached the cap on its enrollment and costs well ahead of schedule.)

It no longer limits the size of projects, and allows customers to participate as direct owners of a project as well as through leases, loans, power purchase agreements, and other financial arrangements. (I think direct ownership would allow individuals to benefit from the 26% federal investment tax credit on the cost of their share of the project.)