Solar developers are increasingly concerned that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has yet to announce the winning applicants of the state’s second community solar pilot program, eight months after the submission deadline. But the BPU says it is simply coping with the “massive undertaking” of reviewing more than 400 complex applications.

Solar developers and representatives of the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA) and Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), two national advocacy groups, told a public hearing on Sept. 28 that the BPU’s failure to announce the winners is putting submitted projects in jeopardy.

Developers that lined up rooftops and signed contracts to apply for the program are struggling to keep their partners on board, with little information from the BPU to calm partner concerns, the industry representatives said. That’s compounded by the fact that BPU has said nothing about whether the second phase will be succeeded by a third pilot phase, a new permanent community solar program, or something else, the representatives said.

The BPU announced in May that it had received 410 applications totaling 800.5 MW by the Feb. 5 deadline —  more than five times the 150 MW that the agency expects to allocate in the second phase.

The number of applications in the second phase is about 60% more than the 252 applications received in the first phase of the program, in which 45 applications were approved for a total of 78 MW. (See Billing Key to NJ Community Solar Growth.) The BPU announced the winners of the first phase in December, about three months after the submission deadline.

BPU spokesperson Peter Peretzman said the program remains on track despite the difficulty of handling the surge in applications.

“There is no delay in the program,” he said. “But rather the review process has taken a significant amount of time and resources due to the number, size and complexity” of the applications, he said.

“We understand the issues the industry brought up and appreciate the urgency. We will provide more information as soon as it’s available,” he said. “We appreciate the strong interest we have received from those who applied, and we expect the board to consider project approvals this fall.”

Expiring ‘Roof Rights’

Speaking at the BPU meeting, Leslie Elder, CCSA’s mid-Atlantic director, encouraged the BPU to announce the awards “as soon as possible” and said there is an “urgent need to bring clarity, predictability and focus to the community solar program.”

The delay has already resulted in some property owners, who had agreed to participate, informing the developer that “their roof rights have expired and that they’re going to be moving on,” she said.

“All contracts have strict timelines that have to be met between the developers and the landowners,” she said. “The uncertainty in awards and what’s next in the community solar program is making it extremely difficult for us to meet those needs.”

Elder said that the organization understands that “the community solar pilot program has experienced both programmatic and administrative delays, which tends to happen [with] a new initiative, let alone when there’s a global pandemic happening.” But she said, “there are growing concerns about the announcement of pilot year two awards.”

Kaitlin Hollinger, a policy manager of Boston-based developer BlueWave, echoed the need for clarity and encouraged the board to address the “urgent concerns within the community.”

Annika Colston, founder of AC Power, a New York City-based solar developer, suggested the BPU provide a timeline on how the program will proceed.

“A great deal of work is completed prior to submission of applications, including partnerships with various stakeholders, such as township governing bodies, local planning boards, community and workforce development partners, property owners, and ratepayers,” she said. “A great deal of goodwill is shared, and commitments are made in an effort to submit the strongest application possible.”

She said the lack of certainty “has reduced the credibility of the program” among her company’s partners.

‘Certainty’ on the Way

The industry’s frustration emerged at the latest of a series of quarterly meetings set up by the BPU— with no set agenda — that are designed to give members of the public and business community a chance to air their views on BPU issues and activities.

Board President Joseph L. Fiordaliso acknowledged the industry’s need for a predictable future and told those at the meeting that “certainty is coming down the line.”

“We are very, very conscious of the industry’s anxiousness regarding certain aspects” of the pilot, he said. With more than 400 applications, it “takes time to evaluate each one individually, diligently and prudently,” he said.

Fiordaliso said he couldn’t say when the awards would be announced but added that the BPU staff is “working extremely hard,” including on improving the “transparency” of the process.

Scott Elias, senior manager of state affairs for SEIA’s Mid-Atlantic region, said the uncertainty is already making it difficult for developers to plan.

“There’s ongoing questions and concerns amongst the industry as to whether a permanent program will be up and running in time to avoid the need for a third year of the pilot,” he said.

Joe Henri, vice president of policy for developer Dimension Renewable Energy, encouraged the board to avoid “putting your staff in a position where they become a bottleneck in a program.”

He said that “month after month” his stakeholders ask what is happening with the project, and “we have to keep telling them that it’s going to be a little bit longer.”

Fear of Interconnection Delays

Fred DeSanti, executive director of the New Jersey Solar Energy Coalition, which represents 27 companies involved in solar development, said the industry is also concerned about utilities’ ability to respond to increasing demand for solar. He urged the BPU to provide more flexibility to account for back-ups in the interconnection process.

With 15,000 projects totaling 1.2 GW ready to be built, DeSanti said he feared that the electric distribution companies (EDC) don’t have the staff to connect them all before the project permits expire.

“We are becoming very concerned that a significant mismatch of resources is beginning to take shape,” DeSanti said. He speculated that only a third of the projects in the state’s Transition Incentive Program will begin commercial operation unless EDC interconnection resources are dramatically increased.

The state stipulates that solar projects have 12 months from BPU approval to get connected to the grid.

He suggested that the BPU take steps to match the volume of projects waiting with the EDCs’ capability to handle them and automatically grant extensions if projects are delayed for reasons out of the developers’ control.

“This would add a great deal of stability and order to the process of providing EDCs with an appropriate planning tool and help relieve anxiety on the part of investors and developers to continue to fund project construction,” DeSanti said.

Francis G. Tedesco, a spokesperson for Atlantic City Electric, said the company continues to invest in and adopt “new grid modeling tools and grid automation technologies as they become available, which allow us to optimize the system and make us better able to accommodate increasing amounts of solar.” That’s enabled the company to increase interconnections, he said.

“However, even with more sophisticated technologies and tools, physical upgrades to increase the capacity of the local energy grid will be required to accommodate the significant growth of solar we expect to see in the coming years,” he added. The company is working with the BPU and other stakeholders to “identify the most efficient and fair path forward to expand capacity on the local energy grid to create new opportunities for solar.”