ROCKLAND — Back in 2005, several Maine towns and cities began rethinking the costs of maintaining their streetlights. At the northern latitudes, it is not a frivolous discussion: At winter dusk, lights flicker on around 4 p.m., and stay on for the next 17 hours. Legislative bills were written by municipalities to mitigate the electric costs, but died before making it to the floor. Students at the independent Watershed School picked up the research, new bills were introduced to open up a more competitive market for street lighting services, and an alliance between South Portland, Falmouth and Rockland began to build — all around reducing the cost of streetlights.

Ten years later, that loose alliance has taken on an expanded focus, and now the three municipalities are introducing this week official measures to encourage small business and community solar projects across the state.

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Rockland Energy Committee considers city powered by the sun

 Rockland’s Energy Committee, a municipal volunteer committee comprising local citizens, will be asking the Rockland City Council at its Feb. 8 meeting to adopt a resolve: "Supporting Market Based Approach to Expanding Opportunities For Municipal, Small Business and Community Solar Projects In Maine."

The same request is going before the councils of South Portland and Falmouth this week.

“Other Maine towns will likely consider this over the next two weeks,” said Pritchett, in a Jan. 31 memo to the Rockland City Council.

The Rockland resolve is predicated on a report and companion legislation that the Maine Legislature’s standing Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee asked the state’s Public Advocate to develop with stakeholders between the 2015 and 2016 legislative sessions.

The bill should provide regulatory reforms that expand “opportunities for small and medium size businesses, schools, municipalities, specialty manufacturing facilities, and others to install solar arrays to offset some or most of the electricity these users consume,” said Pritchett.

The bill also would create a framework for community solar projects, including those built on capped trash landfills, and the distribution of solar power from these projects.

Rockland’s Energy Committee has talked in meetings about locating renewable energy projects like solar arrays on former landfills to generate power used by city municipal buildings and infrastructure. This could, said Pritchett, provide $30-$40 million per year in additional revenue to Maine’s towns and cities.

Rockland’s Energy Committe has one suitable capped landfill in mind (Quarry 2), and is also exploring the former North School site. The committee calculates that solar arrays at both sites could save $200,000-$250,000 for the city in annual energy costs.

“Locally generated power can lower electricity costs by reducing the demand on the transmission grid and also improve the resiliency of the system,” said Pritchett, in his memo. “Maine’s regulatory framework for distributed generation dates to 1998 and has only undergone limited revisions. In contrast cost effective options for local small and medium scale power generation like solar have changed dramatically in 28 years.”

Maine currently allows power from but nine meters to be offset by a solar array, he said. “Restricting system size to 660 kW creates artificial hurdles to developing solar in ways that maximize the potential of solar and lower the cost.”

This is a current reality for South Portland, whose capped landfill could become the site for a 2,640 kW solar array, and help offset $400,000 in electrical costs accrued by that city. But existing regulatory restrict a solar array to 660 kW output, and according to those behind the resolves, that generates less than $150,000 of annual power savings.

“Recognizing both the potential to develop more solar in Maine and the need to revise regulations to recognize new options like Community Solar, the legislature directed the Public Utilities Commission to convene a stakeholder process to explore new approaches,” said Pritchett, who regularly travels to August along with other Rockland Energy Committee members to attend the Public Utility Commission meetings.

Falmouth Town Manager Nathan Poore, South Portland Director of Planning and Development Tex Haeuser, and Rockland Energy Committee Chair Pritchett met at the Legislature's Energy and Utilities in 2011 when that committee was hearing a bill on municipal street lighting. The 2011 effort failed, but the collaboration between Rockland, Falmouth and South Portland was born out of that failure. In 2013 Larry, Tex and Nathan returned to the Legislature with "An Act To Lower Costs to Municipalities and Reduce Energy Consumption through Increased Competition in the Municipal Street Light Market."

“The 2013 legislation drafted by the three municipalities would allow towns and cities to own street lighting located in the power space of shared use utility owned poles and thus be able to choose who provides lighting services in a town,” said Pritchett. “The 2013 legislation passed overwhelming. Working together as the ‘Municipal Street Lighting Group’ the three municipalities have advocated for municipal interest as the PUC has been drafting rules and tariff to implement the 2013 law.

“In 2015 Municipal Street Lighting Group folk began collaborating on other energy issues like solar that are potentially important to all three communities.”

“Solar developers, utilities, conservation organizations, and municipalities all participated through the fall and early winter to develop new regulations for distributed solar generation,” he  said. “This process was led by the Office of the Public Advocate. OPA staff are currently drafting legislation, based on the stakeholder process, for the Energy, Utilities and Technology committee to consider.

“If these changes are made, as much as 250,000 kW of solar could be developed in Maine between now and 2021,” he said. “By contrast, the state’s largest solar developer installed 5,000 kW in 2015.”

The resolve the Rockland Energy Committee is proposing reads as follows:

Resolve: Supporting Market Based Approach to Expanding Opportunities For Municipal, Small Business and Community Solar Projects In Maine

BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL AS FOLLOWS:

Whereas, Maine has the lowest amount of installed solar electrical power generation capacity of any state in New England; and

Whereas, the price of solar photovoltaic panels declined 55% between 2002 and 2013 making solar a financially competitive option for many businesses, municipalities and homes; and

Whereas, solar generation capacity peaks on long summer days when demand on the electrical transmission grid is the highest which makes solar generation located near where the power is used a cost effective option both to minimize stress on the transmission grid and to minimize the cost to all ratepayers of major grid expansion projects; and

Whereas, Maine’s current regulations governing distributed sources of electrical power generation like solar create significant barriers for municipalities and businesses to develop cost effective solar projects to offset a municipality’s or a business’s power consumption; and

Whereas, community solar projects being developed in other states to provide renewable energy to multiple residents are constrained in Maine because current rules restrict the number of electrical meters that can be offset by a solar project to nine meters in effect limiting community solar projects to very small projects that can typically serve nine homes or less; and

Whereas, there are currently over 1,800 acres of closed and capped municipal landfills in Maine for which there are few, if any, common reuse or redevelopment options; and

Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that developing solar power projects on capped landfills and other brownfield sites represents the best reuse option for many of these sites; and

Whereas, redeveloping just 40 percent of the capped municipal landfill acreage in Maine with solar arrays would provide municipalities the equivalent of $30 to $40 Million in annual revenue; and

Whereas, developing solar on the Rockland’s capped Quarry 2 Landfill Site as well as the former North School site could offset $200,000-$250,000 per year of the city’s energy costs; and

Whereas, last year the Legislature passed Resolve 2015 Chapter 37 directing the Public Utilities Commission to convene a stakeholder process to develop a market based approach to sustainable growth in all sectors of Maine’s solar distributed generation market; and

Whereas, the PUC held seven half day stakeholder meetings at which municipalities including Rockland, Falmouth and South Portland, environmental organizations, the Office of the Public Advocate, solar developers, utilities, legislators, as well as other interested parties reviewed options for expanding solar in Maine; and

Whereas, market based concepts and reforms put forward by the Office of the Public Advocate and refined through this stakeholder process are intended to increase the amount of solar capacity that likely would be developed in Maine over the next six years by 250 Megawatts; and

Whereas, the concepts put forward, if adopted in statute and rules, would remove many barriers limiting the development of cost effective municipal, community and commercial solar projects;

NOW, THEREFORE, Be it hereby resolved by City Council as follows:

The City Council supports the types of reforms proposed through the PUC stakeholder process to regulations governing solar distributed generation in Maine and urges the Second Session of the 127th Legislature and the Public Utilities Commission to adopt these changes; and

The City Council designates the City Manager and the Chair of the City's Energy Committee to communicate Council's support to the Legislature's Energy and Utilities Committee, to State Representatives and Senators, to the Public Utilities Commission and to other municipalities.

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657