Nevada Legislature Approves Bills To Encourage Distributed Generation And Community Solar Projects

The Nevada legislature took several actions in the last days of its 2017 legislative session to reopen the state to the development of and investment in distributed generation and community solar projects.  While Nevada has the fourth most solar capacity installed of any state, most of the recent development has been of utility-scale projects after the Public Utility Commission of Nevada changed its net metering policy in 2015 to cut the rate paid by utilities for electricity produced by distributed generation systems to wholesale, rather than retail, rates.

Responding directly to industry pressure and the slowdown in rooftop and other distributed generation solar development since 2015, A.B. 405 provides that rooftop solar customers will initially be compensated for net metering at 95 percent of the retail rate.  Each time an additional 80 megawatts of rooftop solar is installed in the state, this percentage will decrease for subsequent installations, but will not