Two out-of-state community solar companies are suing Maine’s Public Utilities Commission trying to stop what they say is a “discriminatory” change to solar subsidies.
Berwick Solar and Rumford Solar filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court of Maine in Bangor against the PUC and its commissioners Phil Bartlett, Patrick Scully and Carolyn Gilbert.
A law that went into effect Jan. 1 was designed to reduce costs of the net energy billing program as part of community solar for Maine residents. The billing program is supposed to help investment into renewable energy to help investors recover costs.
The law is discriminatory because it passes the cost to out-of-state companies, which violates the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit asked a judge to rule that the law is unconstitutional. Making that ruling will stop the reallocation of costs to out-of-state companies, the lawsuit said.
When creating the law, Maine’s legislators were searching for a “political scapegoat” and found it in companies with investors from Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and other non-Maine hedge funds, the lawsuit said.
Spokespeople for Attorney General Aaron Frey’s office and the PUC declined to comment because it is pending litigation. It is the second lawsuit targeting the solar policy changes after another one from dozens of companies in November.
Under the new law, Berwick has a new charge of $84,000 a year and Rumford has a charge of $252,000 a year, the lawsuit said. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be reallocated to the out-of-state “targeted parties,” according to the lawsuit.