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Proposed Michigan RPS leaves solar in the dark
March, 2007: Michigan's top energy regulator J. Peter Lark on Jan. 31 issued a report calling for the state to join over two dozen other US states that have implemented a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require regulated suppliers of retail electric services to increase the amount of renewable energy they procure.
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© photon-pictures.com
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Untapped potential: Students at the University of Michigan presented this home at the 2005 Solar Decathlon, a national architecture competition. To date, Michigan state has installed only 475 kW.
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The report, which calls for utilities to cover 10 percent of their retail electric supplies with renewable energy by 2015, resulted from a directive issued by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm for Lark to formulate a long-term energy plan. Suggestions in the plan will be debated in state legislature and require legislative action to become law.
As a part of the plan, Lark, who heads the Michigan Public Service Commission, recommends that his agency conduct a solar energy pilot program that would expand participant size in the state‘s highly restrictive net-metering program for distributed generators. Current rules cap the size of each generator available for retail net metering at 30 kW, though a voluntary cap is set at 150 kW, which is still quite small compared to other states. Overall, the program is limited to only 0.1 percent of each utility‘s peak electric load. As in most other US states, utilities in Michigan receive all annual net excess generation for free.
Despite playing host to growing amorphous-silicon thin-film PV producer United Solar Ovonic (see PI 12/2006, p. 56) and polysilicon refiner Hemlock Semiconductor, Michigan‘s timid solar energy policies so far have rendered the state almost entirely insignificant as a solar energy market. With the help of a small number of grants, Michigan‘s energy office reports that it had helped residents install a cumulative total capacity of 475 kW by the end of 2006. Lark‘s recommendations are unlikely to change the slow pace of PV adoption, as his plan does not recommend either a solar or a distributed energy requirement. Legislators, however, could push for such a requirement if they so desired.
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