Two solar farms with owners from outside Maine have sued state energy regulators to block expensive new fees imposed by a rollback of the state's solar energy subsidy program.
Berwick Solar and Rumford Solar alleged that last year's law illegally targeted out-of-state developers to benefit the interests of Maine electric customers and voters.
The law that rolled back a five-year-old expansion of Maine's Net Energy Billing program would "extract economic value from captive out-of-state project investors and redirect that value to the state's own domestic interests," Berwick Solar and Rumford Solar allege. The solar farms are registered and based in Maine but have owners and members outside the state. Berwick is a 2.5 megawatt array and Rumford is capable of producing 3.5 megawatts.
The suit was filed against the Maine Public Utilities commission in Maine federal court this month.
PUC spokesperson Susan Faloon declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The Net Energy Billing expansion in 2019 created generous special electric rates for community solar farms and caused a boom for the industry in Maine.
The Berwick and Rumford companies said that as more solar farms participated and the cost of subsidies grew for electric customers, Maine politicians began making "scapegoats" of out-of-state investors.
The eventual outcome was last year's law, which ended benefits for nearly all new developments and added fees and charges to existing projects, according to the complaint.
The measure is discriminatory because the fees and charges are not applied to Maine-owned solar companies, Berwick Solar and Rumford Solar said.
"The preferential treatment based solely upon in-state Maine ownership is facially discriminatory" and unrelated to the actual cost of the developments to electric customers, the companies said in the complaint.
They alleged the new law violated their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process and the commerce clause.
The lawsuit follows a similar complaint filed late last year by the owners of more than 100 solar farms in an attempt to block the new law.
Edward Gould, a Bangor-based attorney representing Berwick Solar and Rumford Solar did not respond to an interview request.
