[T]he Hardwick Electric Department is the first utility in the state to reach the new cap on how much electricity it can buy from small renewable energy producers.
As of July, the department surpassed the 15 percent maximum that the Legislature set in 2014 to represent the maximum amount of net-metered energy a utility must buy from local customers.
Net metering is the electric billing system that helps homeowners to build renewable energy projects, especially rooftop solar. If the homeowner’s panels produce more energy than the customer uses in a given month, she gets credits on her bill to use in the future.
According to data updated Tuesday from the Public Service Department, Hardwick Electric gets 16.56 percent of its energy through net metering. About 15.4 percent of the total comes from 80 solar projects, and just over 1.1 percent comes from nine wind projects.
“This 15% represents over 1,000 kilowatts of renewable energy capacity within our service territory,” Mike Sullivan, general manager of the Hardwick Electric Department, wrote on the website in July when the utility approached its net-metering limit.
“(Hardwick Electric Department) is very proud to have been a part of these opportunities afforded to our ratepayers, and we consider reaching the cap a great accomplishment,” Sullivan wrote.
The electric department says it will no longer accept net-metering projects until the Legislature acts to change the cap, according to its website. The department is now considering a single, 1,000-kilowatt solar farm that would double its solar development and produce 3 percent of the electricity that its customers use.
Andrew Perchlik, who works for the Clean Energy Development Fund within the Public Service Department, said some utilities are so small that it’s not hard for them to reach the 15 percent cap, but Hardwick nonetheless reached its cap early.
“Hardwick is a little distinct in that they have a little more space, and they have some business sector and business customers who want to do solar,” Perchlik said. “They have more opportunities for people who are able to do some larger projects that sent them over the cap.”
The Legislature wrote the 15 percent cap into Act 99 in 2014 with the expectation that utilities would not exceed it until the end of 2016. Previously, the caps were 4 percent, 2 percent, and the first cap was 1 percent in 1998.
Green Mountain Power has reached 11.01 percent out of the 15 percent cap, according to the Public Service Department. Perchlik said he expects the state’s largest utility to reach its net-metering cap by the end of 2016.
