Local leaders gather to support Cape solar projects

WEST YARMOUTH — Standing in front of the field solar panels behind the Marguerite E. Small Elementary School, local leaders stressed the importance of solar energy to Cape Cod and Islands, and urged state officials to raise the limit on a solar incentive program known as “net metering.”

“The best way to keep solar growing on Cape Cod and all across Massachusetts is to remove any arbitrary limits that are standing in our way,” said Ben Hellerstein, state director for Environment Massachusetts, an environmental advocacy organization that is in the middle of a 10-stop statewide tour to promote solar energy.

Net metering rewards customers for generating excess energy, including from solar panels, and sending it back to the grid, but there is a limit on how much utilities must accept from these types of systems.

“Although communities on Cape are not directly affected by the net-metering cap rates, the caps could cause the statewide slow down of the solar industry,” Hellerstein said.

National Grid, the energy provider that serves more than 170 towns in Massachusetts, including Nantucket, hit its cap in March. The company that serves the Cape and Islands, Eversource, still has some room before it hits the net-metering cap, according John Checklick, president of the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative. The cooperative oversees 32 solar projects in the region, according to Checklick, who said hosts of those projects saved a combined $2.3 million off their electricity bills in the first year.

“These are savings that participants can spend on important community services rather than a utility bill,” Checklick said.

In the long term, Checklick and members of the cooperative hope to maximize space for solar panels. This includes installing them on the roofs of local businesses and encouraging owners of landfills to install fields on their sites. While raising the cap may not have an impact on the Cape and Islands in the short term, if efforts to expand the region’s solar industry go as planned, the current cap will be reached, eliminating an important incentive to entice new participants, according to solar energy proponents.

The state Senate voted July 16 to raise the cap to 1,600 megawatts of solar power, nearly double the current limit, as an amendment to a broader climate change bill. The future of the proposal is unclear, as the climate change bill must still go through the House, and Gov. Charlie Baker has gone on record as opposing the increased cap. 

As of this month, Massachusetts has 867 megawatts of installed solar power capacity from 28,800 projects, according to the state Department of Energy Resources. In 2015 alone, there have been 152.3 megawatts of capacity installed, and capacity has grown more than 183 fold since 2007. The state has set an aggressive target of 1,600 megawatts of solar energy capacity by 2020.

The Dennis-Yarmouth School District recently received a $1.4 million grant from the DOER to invest in battery technology for the district’s five solar fields, Superintendent Carol Woodbury said. Because Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School serves as the emergency shelter for the area, the school was an ideal candidate for the grant, allowing the high school to be able to store energy absorbed by the panels for use during dark and inclement weather, she said.

“Our solar installations provide a great opportunity for our students to learn about caring for the environment and the clean energy industry,” Woodbury said, “Our state’s leaders should support efforts to go solar, here on the Cape and across Massachusetts.”

— Follow Kerri Kelleher on Twitter: @kellehercct