Connecticut’s release of its previously secret 21-year, $1 billion clean energy program information is expected as early as Wednesday, but eight of the dozens of companies that participated are working to keep their information from the public, regulatory filings show.
“It is a trade secret,” said Murtha Cullina attorney Paul Michaud, who represents four energy companies — Hartford Steam, SolarCity, Soltage, and SunEdison — that have filed protective order requests to keep certain project information secret. “There is a great deal of utility customer information that was in those sheets.”
The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority on July 10 reversed its previous ruling about confidential information regarding the Zero-emissions/Low-emissions Renewable Energy Credit, or ZREC/LREC program, which will award $1 billion over 21 years to renewable energy project developers. PURA initially allowed program participants to keep most of their project information secret. Details including winner’s names, the locations of their projects, and the amount they received were not disclosed to the public.
Responding to the Hartford Business Journal’s June 20 Freedom of Information Act request, PURA ordered the keepers of that data — electric utilities Connecticut Light & Power and United Illuminating — to disclose it publicly by July 31. PURA, however, also gave the individual winners the chance to request for protective orders to keep their information secret, as long as they did so by July 22.
Eight companies filed protective orders, but PURA has not yet ruled on those requests. Those seeking protection must prove under what legal section of the Freedom of Information Act that their information should not be disclosed to the public.
Click here for a story update about PURA’s ruling on this request.
In Michaud’s filings for his four clients, he argues much of the information is proprietary and protected under the FOIA trade secret provisions. He said the utilities already publicly disclosed some information on the program participants, including their bid amounts, towns of their projects, the specific technology used, the size of the project, and whether or not they won an award.
“What the utilities have released is more than adequate to inform the public,” Michaud said. “This is a proprietary business.”
Two days after PURA reversed itself, CL&P and UI asked for clarification on the order and a two-week extension to prepare the information. That delayed the release of the data beyond July 31, according to a PURA filing.
PURA’s order said all information should be disclosed, except for bank account numbers, from both the winners and the losers from the first round of the program. CL&P and UI successfully argued other financial information should be protected as well, including tax identification numbers and billing account numbers.
With the two-week extension and the clarification process, the ZREC/LREC project information is expected to be disclosed by Wednesday, Aug. 14.
While the Hartford Business Journal’s FOIA request got PURA to reverse its original decision, the state Office of the Consumer Counsel and industry group Solar Connecticut had worked since the program was first developed in 2011 to publicly disclose the participants’ information.
“We ought to keep track of where the money has been going,” said Joseph Rosenthal, OCC principal attorney. “The industry and the press did a good job keeping the ball rolling on this.”
The ZREC/LREC program was designed to proliferate clean energy installations in Connecticut by providing ratepayer subsidies to projects. In the first year, CL&P and UI awarded ZRECs to 87 solar projects and LRECs to 10 fuel cell projects.
Michaud wouldn’t say how many of the 97 ZREC/LREC awards his clients won, but some clients like SolarCity did have more than one.
The Office of Consumer Counsel doesn’t plan on responding to the protective order requests, instead waiting to see how PURA plans to rule, Rosenthal said.
“We would like to err on the side of public information,” Rosenthal said. “There is not a whole lot of confidentiality in solar panels. You can see them from the road.”
