Developers are flooding Connecticut Light & Power with offers to build solar farms throughout the state, but the Berlin electric utility is taking a more cautious approach to a new state law.
Connecticut Studios in South Windsor and the Preston Redevelopment Agency in Norwich want to partner with CL&P to create large solar arrays on their properties, thanks to a new law allowing electric utilities to once again own power generation facilities.
But since the electric utilities ownership is limited, CL&P is taking its time, deciding where it wants to build and what type of generation is best.
“We’re taking a very cautious, careful, methodical approach,” CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross said. “It all comes down to what is best for our customers.”
After the state utility industry was deregulated in 1998, utility companies such as CL&P and New Haven-based United Illuminating could no longer own any generation facilities, forcing them to sell off assets such as the nuclear Millstone Power Station in Waterford.
That generation ownership rule changed in June when the state legislature rewrote the state’s energy policy, reorganizing departments and funding clean energy projects. Included is a new provision allowing utility companies to own up to 10 megawatts of renewable generation.
The change mirrors the Massachusetts law that also allows for limited utility-ownership of renewable generation under a deregulated system.
Since the ownership law changed, CL&P has been asked by several developers to explore renewable energy projects, Gross said. Although the developers may have jumped the gun feeling CL&P was ready to build, all the electric utility did was agree to explore the possibility of renewable energy on their sites.
“Nothing is set. Nothing has been agreed upon,” Gross said.
Connecticut Studios in South Windsor wants to build an eight-acre, five-megawatt solar array, replacing original plans to put retail and restaurant development around the troubled studio project, which has yet to begin construction.
And the stakes are high.
The solar farm is a recent addition to the $50 million project, which includes major motion picture studios and a hotel, and was added to potentially save the major economic development effort from collapsing.
South Windsor Town Manager Matthew Galligan recently said he has been in talks with a publicly traded company interested in producing the solar farm, which would supply low-cost energy to the studios and hotel, and possibly power that would be sold back into the market as well.
Gross, of CL&P, said the company is evaluating the opportunity, but “nothing is set in stone.”
Massachusetts real estate development firm First Bristol Corp. has shown interest in building the hotel on the Connecticut Studios development at the intersection of I-291 and Route 5.
First Bristol’s plans for South Windsor could include a 120-room Marriott hotel, sources said. But without the solar farm, it’s not clear if the Connecticut Studios project will be viable. Meanwhile, the Preston Redevelopment Agency issued a press release last week saying CL&P had partnered in a plan to put a solar array on the former site of Norwich Hospital, which CL&P quickly denied, saying it was only looking at the possibilities.
With only 10 megawatts of renewable electricity available to own, CL&P has to be choosy, particularly with what kind of generation.
The 10 megawatts doesn’t have to be solar; CL&P could own a wind, biomass or hydro project as long as it meets the state’s standards for renewable energy. Each source of renewable power has its own positives and negatives. Solar is the most expensive form of renewable generation.
“We are constantly looking at new possibilities,” Gross said.
CL&P’s sister Western Massachusetts Electric Co. — both are subsidiaries of Hartford-based Northeast Utilities — owns and operates a solar facility in Pittsfield, Mass. and is planning another in Springfield, Mass.
Whatever projects CL&P ends up partnering with, the company is making it clear it won’t be used as a pawn to spur development. It is strictly interested in the electricity.
“We’re not a real estate company. We’re not a development company. We’re an electric company. That’s it,” Gross said.
