SB5714 – Creates sales and use tax deferments for large solar canopies on commercial, industrial & residential parking lots.
Prime Sponsor – Senator Carlyle (D; 36th District; Northwest Seattle.) (Co-Sponsor Senator Liias – D)
Current status – Referred to House Finance; had a hearing and passed out of committee March 8th. (There were four proposed amendments; though the Legislature’s website doesn’t indicate whether they failed, none of them seem to have made it into the current version of the bill.) Referred to Rules, and passed by the House March 9th.
Next step would be – To the Governor.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.

Comments –
The bill’s findings say that the initial capital costs of installing solar generation on parking lot canopies will in most cases be fully amortized over time with the power generated and sold into the electricity system, but that initial capital costs may deter incorporation of installations into new projects.

In the Senate – Passed
Had a hearing in Environment, Energy & Technology January 13th. Replaced by a substitute and passed out of committee January 27th. Referred to Ways and Means. Had a hearing there  February 17th, and passed out of committee the 24th. Referred to Rules. Amended on the floor to add specifications for the development of the labor standards rules, and passed by the Senate March 4th.

Summary –
Substitute –
The substitute reduces the amount of deferred tax owed by 25%, 50%. or 100% if various labor standards are met, and requires complete repayment of the taxes owed in eight years.

Original bill –
The bill would defer the sales and use taxes for solar canopies with at least a megawatt of capacity in parking lots for commercial, industrial and residential buildings. (If I’ve done the arithmetic correctly, this would be roughly 50,000 sq. ft. of panels.) Applications for the deferral would include the location of the project, its estimated or actual costs, time schedules for its completion and operation, anticipated nameplate capacity and use of the electricity, and any other information the Department of Revenue required. They could be filed until June 30th, 2032.

Applicants would have to begin actual construction on a project within a year of receiving a deferral certificate, unless it was delayed due to circumstances beyond the recipient’s control. (Problems with funding would not count.) Recipients would have to pay any taxes incurred if they didn’t begin construction within a year, and would have to notify the Department if a completed project was going to produce less than 85% of the electricity originally assumed. If a project wasn’t completed within two years, or the Department found it wasn’t being used as a qualifying solar canopy at any time within eight years of its completion, a gradually decreasing proportion of the deferred taxes would be due, with interest.

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee would be required to evaluate the program, considering the number of solar canopies receiving the deferral, their average and total electric output, the total beneficiary savings from the tax preference, the estimated reduction in greenhouse gas emissions assuming an equivalent amount of energy would otherwise been generated through the combustion of fossil fuels, and any other metrics the committee finds relevant.