Red Sox newcomer Adley Rutschman hit his first home run for the team yesterday, while the Connecticut Sun bid farewell to Boston with a dub. (You can watch the highlights of the TD Garden sendoff here.) Now, in other sun news: Good news for the solar curious: Massachusetts passed a rule this month that will tack on a $225 fee for putting solar panels on your roof. Wait, why is that good news? As WBUR's Miriam Wasser reports, the change will make the costs of going solar more predictable for everyone — and saves an unlucky few from paying much, much more to connect their new panels to the grid. - The problem: Up until now, homeowners and businesses installing solar panels had to wait and see if they'd get stuck with a dreaded "interconnection fee." The fee paid for the cost of upgrading the local transformer (and other infrastructure) so it could handle the electricity the new solar project would send back to the grid. It was only triggered for a small percentage of customers, if their particular project was the one that maxed out the grid's capacity. But it could unexpectedly add thousands of dollars to a project — like it did for this Bellingham man who got hit with a $12,000 fee. "One unlucky customer could get stuck with an entire bill for an electric upgrade that benefited everyone who came after them," Lindsay Griffin, a policy expert for the advocacy group Vote Solar, told Miriam, adding that the system was "arbitrarily killing individual projects."
- The fix: Last week, the state's Department of Public Utilities finalized a rule to basically spread out those interconnection fees among all solar customers. "Everyone chips in a predictable $225, and the utility then spreads the shared upgrade costs across the pool of applicants who benefit from that," Griffin said. The new "Common System Modification" fee applies to solar and battery storage projects up to 25 kilowatts — more than enough for your common home solar project.
- The caveat: In certain scenarios, the $225 fee won't cover all costs. For Eversource and National Grid customers, it covers the first $10,000 in interconnection fees. So, for example, if your project requires $11,000 in grid upgrades, you'd have to pay $1,225. For Unitil customers, the fee covers only up to $1,450.
- What's next: DPU officials say the new fee will be in place in two to three months. (Look to your utility for more info on the application process.)
Park it: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is urging the city's parking garage and lot owners not to lease spots to ICE, following the news earlier this month that the federal agency was looking for 250 parking spaces in the area. After ICE surges turned deadly in Minnesota this past winter, Wu and other local mayors signed executive orders prohibiting the agency from using municipal property and parking lots. In a letter yesterday , she called on the city's private parking owners to follow suit. "Reject any proposition by ICE to facilitate an attack on the people of Boston," Wu wrote. "In the face of escalating attacks on cities across the country, we have repeatedly seen that the strongest defense is solidarity." WBUR's Eve Zuckoff has more here on Wu's letter and the response from the Trump administration. - Meanwhile: Wu's administration also filed a FOIA request to see if ICE's request for parking spaces had gotten any local responses.
In Worcester: Police are searching for a woman they say is a suspect in the death of an off-duty police officer in the city. According to the department, the body of officer Kurt Solomon, a 31-year WPD veteran, was found at a home on Wildwood Avenue early yesterday morning. Officials say they are looking for 58-year-old Karen Solomon in connection with his death, and believe she may be armed and dangerous. Police are urging anyone who sees her to call 911. Heads up: MassDOT is installing wrong-way driving deterrents and detection technology along several local highways this week, including Route 128 between Peabody and Gloucester and I-95 between Attleboro and North Attleborough. (ICYMI: State Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver recently gave WBUR a behind-the-scenes look at the effort.) P.S.— The kids from Bridgewater play their first game in the Little League Baseball World Series down in Williamsport, Pennsylvania today. They face the team from Bayonne, New Jersey at 7 p.m. on ESPN. (Full schedule and bracket.) |
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