MORGANTOWN — The Public Service Commission approved this week a ratepayer surcharge by Mon Power and Potomac Edison to help pay for construction of three solar energy projects — all green-lighted for construction in the PSC’s Wednesday order.
Originally proposed at 42 cents per month for an average residential bill, the approved rate is 14 cents per month — revised down by the companies when they sought to have the case reopened in late July. The surcharge will take effect for services beginning Jan. 1, 2024.
“Higher Investment Tax Credits and higher energy forecasts are two of several factors that reduced the net amounts needed to be collected from customers through the surcharge,” they told The Dominion Post at the time.
The companies’ solar program stems from a 2020 bill passed by the West Virginia Legislature that authorizes electric utilities to own and operate up to 200 megawatts of solar renewable generation facilities to help meet the state’s electricity needs.
The three projects are: Fort Martin (adjacent to Mon Power’s Fort Martin coal-fired plant), the first and largest project, at 18.9 megawatts; a 27-acre retired ash disposal site in Rivesville, Marion County, to generate 5.5 MW; and a 26-acre reclaimed ash disposal site in Marlowe, Berkeley County, with 5.8 MW capacity.
Mon Power is also planning projects at two other sites; the three approved sites represent 30.1 MW of the total 50 MW project.
The companies first sought PSC approval for the surcharge — 42 cents at the time — in November 2021. The PSC initially denied their surcharge request in April 2022, pending them reaching an 85% SREC solar renewable energy credits subscription threshold for each site.
The PSC required that when Mon Power and Potomac Edison obtained customer commitments for 85% of the renewable energy credits generated by a solar facility, the companies would seek final approval from the PSC for a surcharge to cover the balance of the project costs and begin full-scale construction.
Last October, Mon Power began actively recruiting customers for its SREC program announced in May 2022 after the PSC’s denial. PSC reopened the case on July 28 after the companies reported reaching the threshold for the Fort Martin and Rivesville projects and nearing it for the Marlowe project.
SRECs are certificates that represent the environmental attributes of solar power and prove solar energy was generated on the purchasers’ behalf. For every megawatt hour of solar energy generated, one SREC is produced. When fully operational, the five projects are expected to create more than 87,000 SRECs per year.
Mon Power told The Dominion Post in July, “It is our hope that the surcharge revenue requirement continues to decrease so that future solar customers will pay 100% of those costs and that no other customer will be required to pay any of those costs for existing and new projects.”
The other two solar plant locations are a 51-acre site in Wylie Ridge, adjacent to a Mon Power substation in Hancock County; and a 44-acre reclaimed strip mine property near Davis in Tucker County.
They project a total capital cost for all five sites at $110 million. Fort Martin, where pre-construction is underway, is expected to be online by the end of this year; the other four projects are expected to come online in 2024 and 2025.
In its Wednesday order, PSC noted that rate recovery of capitalized costs incurred before the date of the order will be considered in future related cases.
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