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