To continue our work bringing together Tribal, regulatory, and utility stakeholders to identify and solve regulatory challenges to the deployment of solar projects at all scales on Tribal land, the project team hosted a series of discussion sessions on November 17-18, 2020 to hear from each of these three communities.
Common challenges that were raised in the sessions included:
Complexity: Many Tribes are served by multiple electric utilities. This can make determining both the economic viability and the needed procedural steps of a project challenging.
Trust and Relationships: It is rare for Tribes to participate in utility planning processes or state regulatory rule-making proceedings, and it is also relatively rare for utilities and regulators to have a strong ongoing relationship with Tribes in their region. Those parties that do have strong ongoing relationships feel they can plan better together and work toward common goals, rather than having a relationship based solely on challenges that arise or Tribes’ need to react/respond to policies or system changes that may negatively impact them.
Uncertainty: Electric utility rates and regional market structures naturally determine project economics, but there is uncertainty surrounding project viability in cases in which these structures may change or where there may be multiple project interconnection or infrastructure options. Tribes need to perform thorough due diligence to ensure that a project will work financially.
PDF summaries of each session identifying key challenges and can be accessed using the following links.
We want to hear from you. Using the commenting tool below, ask questions, post your thoughts, and add challenges or solutions that were not identified in the November discussions.