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