By William Opalka

For the second time in seven months, FERC declined on Thursday to intervene in a renewable energy developer’s claims against Connecticut regulators (EL16-69).

The commission declined to begin an enforcement action under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act on behalf of Allco Finance and its unit Windham Solar. The petitioners said the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and state law violated PURPA’s mandatory purchase obligation.

The company owns 26 small solar generating facilities whose energy and capacity it offered to sell to Eversource Energy for 30 years at the utility’s forecasted avoided costs. The developer sold the renewable energy credits separately to Eversource, in a one-year agreement approved by PURA, its petition states.

However, Allco and Windham allege that they are being required by Connecticut to either offer a bundled product that includes the RECs or sell energy under short-term contracts, in violation of PURPA.

“The commission has stated that the states have the authority to determine who owns RECs in the initial instance and how they are transferred and has explained that the automatic transfer of RECs within a sale of power at wholesale must find its authority in state law, not PURPA,” FERC wrote.

FERC rejected a similar petition for PURPA enforcement in January that involved the state’s procurement of wind energy from a proposed project in Maine. (See Court Next Stop for Developer, FERC Says.)