Minnesota court upheld size limits for Xcel community solar

Dive Brief:

The Minnesota Court of Appeals last week upheld limits on the size of community gardens on Xcel Energy's system, limiting the projects to five co-located gardens each with a maximum size of 1 MW.
Xcel has sought the limits, arguing that a slate of proposed projects defied the intent of community solar rules by grouping smaller projects together to significantly exceed capacity limits. Last year, the utility said it had received 560 MW of applications for community shared solar, with 80% being co-located projects.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports Sunrise Energy Ventures, which filed the lawsuit challenging the rules, is considering whether to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Dive Insight:

Xcel's community solar program drew "overwhelming response," an appeals court judge noted last week, leading the court to conclude that the state's Public Utilities Commission "made lawful and reasonable fact-specific determinations" to limit the size of the program last year.

The decision notes that when Xcel brought the issue of utility-scale community gardens to regulators' attention, it had received approximately 400 applications though they were spread between only 75 sites.

"Because the [community solar garden] program is an alternative to the statute governing the solar-power competitive-bid process, the PUC may lawfully place limitations on participation, including on
interconnection costs, without violating state and federal law," the court found.

Xcel last year announced it had plans to develop 2,400 MW of solar capacity, including 700 MW of distributed rooftop and community solar. Attempts to slow community solar growth grew out of of concerns about costs and overloaded distribution system circuits.

But lengthy disputes between Xcel and developers about the size and arrangement of community solar facilities stalled development of the statewide program, which was hailed as a breakthrough for shared renewables in the Midwest when rolled out in 2014.

Sunrise Energy, which brought the lawsuit against Xcel, called the decision "ridiculous." The company had proposed 100 solar gardens in the state, sized between 20 MW and 50 MW each.

Managing Director Dean Leischow told the news outlet that “Xcel has conjured up a sort of Norman Rockwell version of community solar,”and added the company is still considering whether to appeal the court's decision.