This afternoon, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) released the much-anticipated results of the competitive procurement that will set the base compensation rates for the SMART program. The base compensation rates range from $0.17 in the NSTAR and Nantucket Electric territories to about $0.14 in WMECO. In Massachusetts Electric territory, the non-Nantucket territory served under the National Grid umbrella, the base compensation rate is about $0.16. A DOER summary table of the procurement is below. A more detailed table of the results from the procurement and the rates that follow from the results is available here.
It appears that the amount procured through the solicitation was low in several service territories. For instance, NSTAR, serving much of eastern Massachusetts, appears to have received only a single bid for 2 MW, and Unitil procured nothing (DOER set the Unitil rate at the rate resulting from the Massachusetts Electric procurement). With only about 53 MW procured in total (about 80% of that in National Grid's non-Nantucket service area), more capacity will be available for additional projects in the first capacity block.
The extent to which these rates support continued growth of solar development in Massachusetts, and the contours of that future development, may now depend on the outcome of the ongoing proceeding at the Department of Public Utilities to adopt a tariff for implementing SMART.
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