On June 1, 2023, Traditional Community Solar (“TCS”) capacity for the 2023-2024 Program Year opened. For the 2023-2024 Program Year, capacity available for the TCS category was 60 MW for Group A and 140 MW for Group B. After capacity was allocated to the November 1, 2022 submitted projects on the 2022-2023 waitlist, there was 0 MW of capacity available for Group A and 114.62 MW available for Group B. Then, all projects submitted November 2, 2022 to May 31, 2023 were processed and scored. All Group A projects that met the minimum waitlist score of 5 points were carried over to the Group A 2023-2024 Waitlist, as there was no available capacity for these projects. This waitlist is published and updated weekly on the Block Capacity Dashboard page of the Program website. All Group B projects that met the minimum waitlist score of 5 points were awarded capacity for the 2023-2024 Program Year. After these awards, there was 35.68 MW of Group B capacity available for projects submitted on June 1, 2023, and 0 MW of Group A capacity available.
At 11:59 pm Central Time, June 1, 2023, the first day of application submissions for Program Year 2023-24 ended and a total of 112.89 MW of capacity was submitted: 14 MW submitted to Group A and 98.89 MW submitted to Group B. In accordance with the TCS scoring guidelines previously published in both the 2022 Long-Term Renewable Resources Procurement Plan (pg. 166) and the 2023 Program Guidebook (pg. 115), the Program Administrator has scored all TCS projects submitted on June 1, 2023 that completed application processing. These scores will be used to determine which projects will be selected for a REC contract once random selection (if needed) takes place and the 20% developer cap is applied.
The scores have been posted on the Program website on the Traditional Community Solar page of the Project Category Hub.
Next Steps
While the Program Administrator has carefully reviewed project applications to determine scores and applied scoring criteria consistently across all project applications, an Approved Vendor may appeal decisions made by the Program Administrator on the scoring of their projects. Any appeal of TCS scores will need to be submitted in accordance with the appeal process outlined in the 2023 Program Guidebook (pg. 29). An Approved Vendor has two weeks from August 24, 2023 to file an appeal. Submitted appeals must be received by the Program Administrator at [email protected], by 11:59 pm Central Time September 8, 2023. As the determination of appeals may influence a project’s final score, and thus possibly the final selection of all TCS projects, all appeals must be reviewed by the Agency within a distinct timeframe. The Agency intends to have all submitted appeals determined by September 18, 2023, subject to the quantity and substance of appeals submitted.
Following the resolution of scoring appeals, if any, scores will be posted. At that time, the Agency will announce if a random selection process is necessary to break ties between projects that received the same scores and where those scores would impact project selection, or waitlist placement. The Agency expects that random selection of projects within tied score brackets will be necessary based on the current scoring, but this process cannot occur until the appeal process is complete and all scores are confirmed. The Agency intends to hold the random selection event on September 20, 2023. During this process, the 20% developer cap will be applied. If a single Approved Vendor has projects with tied scores that are the same size, the Approved Vendor will have the option to select which of their projects would be selected and which move to the waitlist, in order to keep that Approved Vendor within the 20% developer cap.
Projects that are placed on the TCS 2023-2024 waitlist will remain waitlisted until capacity in the respective Group becomes available. Waitlisted projects will be eligible for new capacity released for the 2024-2025 Program Year beginning June 1, 2024.
Projects that received a score less than the required five point minimum to be placed on the waitlist may be resubmitted to the Program at any time. The AV will need to submit a new application, thus a new application fee will be required.
TCS applications submitted on and after June 2, 2023 are in the process of being reviewed and scored. If an application receives a minimum of five points, it will be placed at the end of the 2022-2023 Program year waitlist. If a project does not receive a minimum score of five points, the application is not eligible to be waitlisted.
Anticipated Schedule of Next Steps
- September 8, 2023, 11:59 pm CT – Deadline for AVs to submit appeals to Program Administrator
- September 18, 2023 – Appeal determinations released to AVs and any changes to scores will be published to the Program website
- September 20, 2023 – Random selection event for projects with tied scores
- September 22, 2023 – Final scores and project selection published
