The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (the "Department") today issued its Order Announcing Notification Date in its proceeding under 16-64, setting September 26, 2016 at 2PM as the "Notification Date" related to the transition to market net metering credits for private net metering projects.

The Order, 16-64-D, is available here: 16-64-D Order Announcing Notification Date 7 29 16.

The Department determined in its order that "aligning the timing for transition to the new regime of net metering credits with DOER's SREC II program is the best option to result in a smooth transition to a stable and equitable solar net metering market." With this Order, it looks like the Department has done a good job of navigating a smooth transition. (Remember how this started?)

With that worthy goal in mind, the department calculated the maximum amount of time that would be required to obtain a cap allocation on or before January 8, 2017 (a meaningful date under DOER's SREC II program) and chose September 26, 2016 as the Notification Date.

The Department reasoned that such a date would be sufficiently distant in the future after finalizing the net metering regulations and that such date would permit a period of as long as 70 days to work through the full ACA process needed to plan for, apply for and receive a cap allocation under the new rules.

As noted in our July 15th post, the DPU previously adopted three criteria that must be met in order for a private net metering project to receive net metering credits as calculated prior to the enactment of the Commonwealth's recent Act Relative to Solar Energy (rather than the reduced "market" net metering credit):

(1) submission to MassACA of an application for a net metering cap allocation prior to the Notification Date (i.e. September 26, 2016 by 2PM);

(2) receipt of confirmation from the MassACA administrator that the application is complete; and

(3) receipt of a MassACA cap allocation by January 8, 2017.

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