From:                                                       Gail Fleischaker <gailflei1@gmail.com>

Sent:                                                         Saturday, May 18, 2019 8:55 AM

To:                                                            RPS, DOER (ENE)

Subject:                                                   comments on RPS Class I & RPS Class II Regulations

 

Mr. Wassam:

I am submitting this written comment regarding DOER’s efforts to change the SREC 1 terms, changes that clearly disadvantage those of us who signed up under earlier promises.

When the small (7.4 KW) rooftop system was installed on my home in 2012, I was “guaranteed” a supported baseline SREC value.  That value was not reached for quite a few quarters of the new program, with the result that my actual auction value SREC sales were below that “base."  As a consequence, those sub-base values caused my payoff date to move well beyond the date expected at the time I made the decision to go solar.

In the past couple of years, the “base" has been reasonably exceeded and I am catching up, but I need all of the 10-year SREC window to break even on my solar installation.  Now I learn that DOER proposes to short me three years of SREC returns by eliminating the option to continue to sell my SRECs through 2025 on an alternative market (a market that will likely be superior to the current default). 

While I appreciate DOER’s early efforts to grow solar, especially home-scale solar like mine, it is damaging to Massachusetts solar energy leadership and the development of profitable future technology when the state's main regulatory agency keeps under-delivering on its promises to early adopters. 

Stick to the rules of the game in place at the time you sought and guided public investment and small private homeowner investment.  If you now change those rules (if you renege on those earlier promises), you will be encouraging an energy future ever more dominated by (largely foreign) energy conglomerates, entities that used our investment to prove the field so they could lobby us out.

It is critical that the state maintain its existing commitments to alternative energy investors.

Thank you,
Gail

 
Gail R. Fleischaker
62 West Pelham Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
413.253.0565  voice

 

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