The Below items are excerpted from SEIA's newsletter:

On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee will mark up a draft of the energy tax title.  The draft, released by Chairman Baucus last Thursday, would extend the Section 48 commercial and Section 25(D) residential credits through 2010.  The draft legislation would raise the cap for residential PV from $2,000 to $4,000.  Additionally, there would be provided a special 50% bonus depreciation for transmission lines connecting Section 48 (commercial solar) plants to the grid, and repeal of the utility exemption from Section 48.  

While the proposed draft falls well short of the 8 years for residential and commercial that SEIA is advocating for, there is a great deal of fluidity in the proceedings and we are endeavoring to improve the treatment for solar.  SEIA is working with our champions on Senate Finance to offer amendments that will secure a longer-term extension, as well as the removal of the Section 25(D) cap for PV.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee is expected to hold the mark-up session originally slated for last Tuesday.  With the additional week, we have made significant progress in the House.  The draft Chairman's mark now removes the residential $2,000 cap, after a large number of members – prompted by hundreds of phone calls from SEIA member companies and advocates – raised their concern that the residential credits were not in the bill.  This is a huge victory for solar and we will now work with staff to get some additional years for residential.  As mentioned above, the Senate version will likely have the residential credits included, so there will be a compromise needed and we will push for 8 years on both residential and commercial.

In related news, grassroots support for an 8-year ITC extension continues to grow.  Last week New York Governor Eliot Spitzer sent a letter to Ways and Means Chairman Rangel urging passage of the provisions in H.R. 550, the US Chamber of Commerce agreed to sign on as supporters of H.R. 550, and NYC Councilwoman Melissa Mark Viverito introduced a City Council resolution supporting H.R. 550.  We will continue to bring you the most up-to-date news as it develops. 

B.  Senators Clinton and Sanders Offer Progressive Net Metering and Interconnection Amendment  

Earlier today, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Bernard Sanders (I-VT) offered a floor amendment to the energy bill that would establish national net metering and interconnection standards.  The legislation borrows many of the “New Jersey model” best-practices and contains the following provisions:

Net Metering: Available for systems up to 2 MW in size.  Carryover of unused credits through the next calendar years.  Retail electricity suppliers that offer a TOU rate option that credits the customer-generator at the TOU retail rate for excess generation.  Capped at 4% of a utility’s peak demand, and at 2% for any one generation type. 

Interconnection: Available for systems up to 20 MW in size.  Separate expedited standards for systems under 15 kW and for systems from 15 kW to 2 MW.  Standards are to be designed using IREC’s Model MR-I2005.

REC Ownership: Resides explicitly and exclusively with the customer-generator. 

General: Additional charges to meet safety requirements beyond those of the UL, IEEE, or ANSI are prohibited.  Act does not preclude states from adopting more aggressive standards.