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How Utilities Block Community Solar Projects | TIME

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T he field was perfect for a solar array; unused farmland in Pine Bush, N.Y., with no nearby neighbors to complain. But when the developer, Sol Source Power, submitted an application to Orange & Rockland Utilities to get permission to connect the still-unbuilt community solar project to the grid, it got a surprising response. Connection would cost $20 million, the utility said—roughly 40 times what Sol Source Power had anticipated. After a failed appeal, the company withdrew the application, as it has 14 of the 15 community solar projects it has asked to connect to Orange & Rockland, a subsidiary of Con Edison, one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the U.S. “The hurdles are just getting higher and higher,” says Lindsey McEntire, chief development officer of Sol Source Power, which operates in New York and Illinois. Sol Source appealed the decision, but did not succeed in getting much more explanation or a reprieve on the cost; it dropped the project. “We also don’t want to roc

The field was perfect for a solar array; unused farmland in Pine Bush, N.Y., with no nearby neighbors to complain. But when the developer, Sol Source Power, submitted an application to Orange & Rockland Utilities to get permission to connect the still-unbuilt community solar project to the grid, it got a surprising response. Connection would cost $20 million, the utility said—roughly 40 times what Sol Source Power had anticipated. After a failed appeal, the company withdrew the application, as it has 14 of the 15 community solar projects it has asked to connect to Orange & Rockland, a subsidia

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