The Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners Tuesday recommended expanding the Feed-in Tariff program, which pays people for feeding renewable energy to the department’s grid.
The FiT program allows customers, solar companies and others to develop solar or other eligible renewable energy projects within the DWP’s service territory and sell the power to the department at a set price. The power is redistributed to the DWP’s power grid.
“The FiT program has been enormously well-received, as it provides dependable guidelines and set pricing to give customers and businesses the confidence to invest in renewable energy,” DWP General Manager and Chief Engineer Martin Adams said. “This expansion will allow even bigger projects, incorporating new, innovative technology to participate throughout the locations we serve.”
The expansion proposal allows for another 300 megawatts of capacity and includes changes to the program to increase resident participation.
To allow larger projects to apply for FiT, the maximum individual project size has been increased from 3 megawatts to 10 megwatts. Additional renewable energy technologies can now be incorporated into FiT projects, including wind, geothermal and small or conduit hydroelectric, according to DWP.
As of Tuesday, the program included 96 projects with 66.2 megawatts in service, producing enough energy to supply about 18,000 homes, according to DWP.
DWP said FiT is a big part of the city’ s Green New Deal to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2045. The board authorized 50 megawatts of the 300 megawatts to be implemented in the next year.
The proposal must receive Los Angeles City Council approval to move forward.
In 2020, LADWP plans to introduce a FiT+ program to support local solar storage projects.