Investigators from the Maine Public Utilities Commission have found the Passamaquoddy Tribe's plans to install solar panels on more than 200 homes in the Indian Township community will not violate state rules on the size of certain renewable energy developments.
The project, funded with a $7.4 million federal grant, has been on hold since late last year after local utility Eastern Maine Electric Cooperative argued the rooftop arrays amounted to a single "discrete electric generating facility" capable of producing 1.9 megawatts of power, more than is allowed under Maine's Net Energy Billing rules.
The utility argued that since the arrays had a common source of funding, economies of scale and were within a mile of one another, they should be considered a single generator.
But PUC staff said the rules governing the size of projects were intended to prevent commercial solar companies from disguising a single large array as multiple smaller developments to qualify for state solar incentives.
The projects described by the Passamaquoddy, however, would be sized to serve household energy demand and produce solar energy credits only for individual customers, investigators said.
"The fact that the funding to construct the projects comes from the grant, rather than the individual's savings or leasing to own from the developer does not make the projects shared financial interest facilities, nor does it make each individual facility merely a subset of a larger facility," agency staff said in an examiner's report.
Attorney Adam Cote of firm Drummond Woodsum who represents the Passamaquoddy in the dispute, said it is essential the tribe be allowed to move ahead with its project while it still has access to federal funding. The Environmental Protection Agency grant was already suspended this winter and the Trump administration has revoked other renewable energy awards including Maine's solar for all funding.
"The clock is ticking on this project, we need to be able to move forward with it," Cote said. "As far as we know, as of now, the funding is still there and we are going to pursue the project."
A spokesperson for EMEC did not immediately respond to an interview request.
The three-member PUC still needs to vote on whether to accept the examiners' report.
