5.2. ERMUSR 09-10-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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NEW LAWS The following pages with red headings summarize new laws passed during the 2013 legislative session. Each law or individual provision applies to Minnesotans beginning on the "effective date" following its summary. Some of these laws will be codified within Minnesota's permanent statutes while others (such as those that assign studies to be completed) will be found only in the state's official yearly session law compilations under the indicated chapter number. Editorial comments appear as italicized text. OMNIBUS ENERGY BILL 2013 Session Laws Chapter 85,Articles 7-13 (HF 729 - Omnibus Jobs, Economic Development, Housing, Commerce and Energy Finance bill, also called the Jobs bill) HF 956 Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL- Brooklyn Park) SF 901 Sen.John Marty(DFL- Roseville) Just as "omnibus"bills at the legislature typically evolve, the 2013 House and Senate Omnibus Energy bills were put together separately and more or less simultaneously over several weeks and through the course of several committee hearings from collections of bills introduced individually by various legislators. The separate bills were amended through the committee process onto core bills introduced by the two energy committee chairs. Those core bills contained proposals from the Governor's administration with the goal of increasing the amount of solar electricity throughout the state. Near the beginning of the legislative session, leadership at the state's Division of Energy Resources(D.E.R.) laid out the administration proposal in separate meetings with groups of lobbyists from the various electric utility sectors. MMUA met with the D.E.R. Director on behalf of the municipal sector. Under part one of the proposal, the cap on net metered facilities would be increased from 40kW to 1,000kW. That is, the eligibility size limit for customer-owned solar panel systems that could earn compensation for their excess generation would increase by a factor of 25. And compensation for energy from systems within the new size range would be at a rate equal to the utility's avoid cost Part two of the proposal would set an alternative rate that utilities could choose to pay for such energy. That rate would be set by the D.E.R. according to a formula that would supposedly calculate the true "value of solar,"or"solar value"as referred to in the law as enacted. (See ARTICLE 9 below for details.) The proposal's base "value of solar"power purchasing rate model was devised by the municipal utility serving Austin, Texas and went into effect there two months prior to its introduction in this Minnesota legislative session. Intended to encapsulate all of the benefits of solar as a generating resource, the "value of solar"model would quantify factors including avoided line loss, avoided energy and transmission capacity payments, environmental benefits 62