I am submitting this written comment regarding DOER’s
efforts to change the SREC 1 terms to the disadvantage of those who signed up
under earlier promises.
When my small (7.4 KW) system was installed in 2012, at
much higher initial costs than in subsequent years due to solar innovation we
knew was coming, I was “guaranteed” a “supported” baseline SREC value that was
not actually reached for quite a few quarters of the new program. My actual
auction value SREC sales were below that “base, causing my payoff date to move
well beyond the date expected at the time of making the decision to go solar.
In the last couple of years, the “base" has been
reasonably exceeded and I am catching up. Now I learn that after the 10 year
SREC window (all of which I will need to break even on my solar installation),
DOER proposes to short me another 3 years of SREC returns by eliminating the
option to continue to sell my SRECs through 2025 on an alternative market that will likely be superior to the
default now proposed.
While I appreciate DOER’s early efforts to grow solar,
especially home scale solar like mine, I think it is damaging to Massachusetts’
solar energy leadership and profitable future technology development when the
main regulatory agency at state level keeps underdelivering on its promises to
early adopters.
Stick to the rules of the game in place at the time you
asked for and guided public investment, especially small private homeowner
investment. Otherwise you will be encouraging an energy future ever more dominated by (largely
foreign) emerging energy conglomerates that let us prove the field so they
could lobby us out.
Thank you.
Richard M. Chandler
41 Meadow Lane
Box 2011
Ashfield, MA 01330
413-628-3286