When they convene on Thursday, the New Hampshire House of Representatives will consider two proposals that could affect the future of renewable energy throughout the state.
House Bill 1542 and House Bill 1002 target programs designed to make it easier to finance renewable energy projects, including residential solar. Both bills were recommended for passage after lengthy hearings and largely partisan votes in the House Committee on Science, Technology, and Energy, reflecting a debate among House members over the impacts of investing in renewable energy on New Hampshire soil.
Repealing the solar tax exemption
One proposal is HB 1002, which would eliminate a property tax exemption for solar equipment on homes and businesses.
Municipalities currently can opt in to allow residents to make use of this exemption, which allows a property owner to exclude the value of a solar array from the assessed value of their property.
Supporters of HB 1002 have argued that the exemption shifts a higher tax burden onto other residents of a community who do not have solar. But others say that a solar array brings value to the electrical grid, and to other local ratepayers, beyond the home where it’s installed, and that removing the tax exemption would cause a sudden tax increase on enrolled homeowners, discouraging buildout of distributed generation in the state.
“If this exemption goes away, then we will probably see a lot less solar development in New Hampshire,” said Clifton Below, immediate past chair of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire.
Rebating renewable energy funds
The full House will also act Thursday on an amended version of HB 1542, which would create a new rebate for utility ratepayers by redirecting money from the Renewable Energy Fund. The House Committee on Science, Technology, and Energy recommended this bill for passage, 10-6.
The Renewable Energy Fund, administered by the New Hampshire Department of Energy, directs funding from utilities into renewable energy investments. It is tied to New Hampshire’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, which both sets goals for the amount of renewable energy flowing through New Hampshire’s grid and calls for electricity providers to source a given percentage of energy from renewable sources. If the provider can’t meet that goal, they must pay into the Renewable Energy Fund with what is called an Alternative Compliance Payment.
The Renewable Energy Fund has previously funded projects such as efficiency upgrades and renewable generation installation at resident-owned communities, low-income housing and other residences, and businesses. But it has also sometimes accumulated a surplus that has been targeted for transfer to the general fund instead of energy projects.
“When you keep raiding this fund, you’re just creating a back-door tax on ratepayers,” said Greg Moore, state director for Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian conservative advocacy group funded by the fossil-fuel billionaire Koch family.
Meanwhile, supporters said the fund could have accomplished its goals with better administration from the Department of Energy.
“It’s a bad-faith argument to sabotage a program and then say, ‘the program’s not working, it’s dysfunctional,’” said Rep. Tony Caplan, a Democrat from Henniker.
The rebate, according to the amendment, would be distributed to ratepayers on a per-kilowatt-hour basis. But alternative compliance payments have become less common, said Below, reducing the amount that ratepayers would see on their bill.
Supporters also said the programs funded by the Renewable Energy Fund were important to equitable clean energy development in New Hampshire.
The fund’s available award money, which was reduced to $1 million in last June’s budget, currently supports two programs: a grant program to help low- and moderate-income communities build solar arrays, and a non-residential competitive grant program, said Megan Stone, legislative liaison for the Department of Energy.
The fund also supports nine full-time positions at the department, according to Stone. Meanwhile, there are about 3,500 people employed in New Hampshire’s renewable energy industry, said Nick Krakoff, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation.
The amended version of the bill is considerably different from its form as introduced by sponsor Rep. Jeanine Notter, a Republican from Merrimack. The original version of the bill proposed setting the cost of alternative compliance payments to zero, a measure that the Department of Energy said would not only end cash flow to the Renewable Energy Fund but also collapse the market for renewable energy certificates in New Hampshire.
The bill is not the first to target the Renewable Portfolio Standard and Renewable Energy Fund. Others include another bill this session, House Bill 1721, that would phase out the Renewable Portfolio Standard by getting rid of compliance payments and the generation of renewable energy certificates over a period of about 20 years, according to sponsor Rep. Michael Harrington, a Republican from Strafford. The House Committee on Science, Technology, and Energy voted in favor of passing HB 1721, which will next be considered by the full House. And last year’s House Bill 219, which would fix compliance payments indefinitely and eliminate the Renewable Portfolio Standard’s specific requirements around solar energy, is currently in committee in the Senate.
In session on Thursday, Feb. 12, the House will consider HB 1002 and HB 1542. If the bills pass, HB 1542, which carries a fiscal note, would be referred to the House Committee on Finance, while HB 1002 would advance to the Senate.
This story was originally published by New Hampshire Bulletin and is being reprinted here under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Click here to visit NH Bulletin and view their other stories.