Solar race is on; Bethel business shut out for now

Posted 9/30/09

The race to install solar arrays in New York is clearly on, and in some cases, developers who want to install two-megawatt commercial systems are blocking out smaller customers who may want to …

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Solar race is on; Bethel business shut out for now

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The race to install solar arrays in New York is clearly on, and in some cases, developers who want to install two-megawatt commercial systems are blocking out smaller customers who may want to install smaller systems at their businesses.

That is the case with at least one business in the Town of Bethel, which was recently denied an application for a solar installation by NYSEG because the capacity of the grid in that region was already claimed by others.

In July, the solar company Cypress Creek held an informational meeting and displayed a map showing that the company had plans for four 2MW solar installations in the Town of Bethel.

At a meeting at the government center in Monticello August 3, Ray Kinney, director of transmission for NYSEG, said he could not speak directly about specific customers or projects, but he addressed the issue in general terms.

He said the state is currently swamped with solar applications, and if all of the projects that have applied were to be developed they would generate 42% of all of the power that goes to NYSEG customers during a peak period of use.

Kinney said that interconnection agreements for 2MW and under are governed by the Public Service Commission (PSC) in what is known as the standard interconnection requirements (SIRS).

He said NYSEG leaves space on the grid so that most homeowners would be able to hook up a solar system to the grid if they chose to do so, but that was not necessarily the case with commercial customers.

Kinney said a company or developer enters a “queue” for grid space when they submit an application for a solar installation. He said, “Under the existing SIRS, in each step of the process there are decision points and timelines on solar developers or any private developers. Once a developer gets a preliminary screening analysis, they have up to 30 days to make a decision to move to the next step of the process or step aside.”

He also noted that the previous SIRS, which was in place until April, resulted in a situation where, “We’re dealing with a lot of people in the queue who basically have a right to sit on that spot for an extended period of time. We’ve rectified that working with the PSC and the developers to put time requirements in the new (SIRS) such that those people get moved out much more quickly. There’s also an ongoing program to deal with that backlog.”

He said the company is trying to “work cooperatively to get a new set of rules for folks who are sitting there.”

Kinney was asked if a solar developer could monetize their place in the queue without actually building a system. He said there are some previsions in the SIRS that allow a developer to assign its queue provision to someone else, but he did not have the specific requirements at hand.

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