Connecticut to Resume its Commercial Solar Program

The CT Clean Energy Fund (CCEF) announced last week that it will reopen its commercial solar program.   Reopening the commercial solar program is very good news for Connecticut businesses.  The Connecticut commercial PV rebate has been closed since early 2009.  The only funding commercial projects in the Nutmeg state have been seeing were in the form of grants through the Onsite Renewable Distributed Generation (DG) Program and unfortunately, this program hasn’t seen new applications since June 30, 2010—funding ran out.

CCEF made the decision to reopen the commercial PV program because the residential PV program will no longer be funded using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Federal grant funds.  The Connecticut residential program will instead be financed by ratepayer funds as it previously was using – please disregard all my previous posts regarding ARRA funding with the residential PV rebate.  No ARRA requirements will apply for residential PV projects.

The Connecticut commercial PV program will have an allotment of $3M from ARRA. The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund expects to commence the new program in early October.  The solar incentive will be open to public, profit, and not-for-profit facilities and the projects must abide by ARRA regulations.

This is an enormous win for the Connecticut solar industry and especially the state’s businesses.  Many were waiting for a new incentive to come out before moving forward on solar installations.  PV installers are hoping the tide has turned and next an SREC program will be instituted in Connecticut.  The availability of SRECs could cut the payback on a solar investment in half (as it did in Massachusetts).  Two years ago, legislation to originate an SREC market was passed by the House unanimously, but didn’t make it in time to reach the Senate.  This year the legislation was passed by the House and the Senate, but Governor Rell vetoed the bill because of non-solar provisions.  The SREC legislation is said to be the first thing on the agenda when the state legislative session opens in 2011. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake the bill passes early next year!