New Jersey releases proposal for solar incentive successor program

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) today released the draft Capstone Report for the State’s next-generation Solar Successor program. The draft report, developed by consultants Cadmus Group, presents preliminary findings regarding the incentive levels necessary to support continued robust solar development in New Jersey while lowering costs to the State’s four million ratepayers.
“The solar transition is being conducted in an extremely collaborative manner with significant stakeholder input, which is a true reflection of how important the solar industry is — and will continue to be — to the Garden State,” said Joseph L. Fiordaliso, NJBPU president. “The abundant renewable energy and thousands of jobs created by our solar partners throughout the state are critical to reaching Governor Murphy’s vision of 100% clean energy in New Jersey. I’m confident that the rigorous approach we’ve applied, and will continue to apply throughout this process, will provide the best possible outcome for a healthy and vibrant industry to those in the business community while ensuring its affordability for New Jersey consumers.”
The draft Capstone Report suggests moving away from the competitive “market-style” approach used in the state’s legacy Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) program, by establishing a hybrid program that uses a competitive solicitation approach for grid-scale solar projects and a fixed incentive for smaller projects in order to achieve incentive values more closely tailored to the needs of various project types and to maximize cost savings for ratepayers.
The Clean Energy Act of 2018 directed NJBPU to conduct a study on how to replace the SREC program, which NJBPU established in 2004 to complement the state’s existing solar rebate program.
NJBPU has conducted the Solar Transition in two phases:
the Transition Incentive Program, which NJBPU established in December 2019 and which took effect on May 1, 2020, and
the Solar Successor Program, which is currently under development and is the focus of the draft Capstone Report.
NJBPU released the draft Capstone Report along with the underlying modeling spreadsheets to enable stakeholders’ full examination and response to the model, modeling assumptions, and preliminary results. This month, the agency will conduct two stakeholder meetings in addition to opening a comment period on the report, all of which are detailed in this Public Notice.
These discussions and the additional feedback that NJBPU receives on the report will inform any further modeling and modifications as needed prior to the consultant finalizing the Capstone Report in Fall 2020 and informing the forthcoming staff Straw Proposal on the design of the Solar Successor program.