unconstitutional government \u201ctaking\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and said they were unlikely to win the case.<\/p>\nThe solar companies argued that they developed projects under an expansion of the Net Energy Billing (NEB) program seven years ago.<\/p>\n
Developers sued Maine utility regulators last year, arguing that they relied on the program to make project finances work and adding new fees would cripple existing solar farms.<\/p>\n
But Judge Neumann noted that companies\u2019 participation in NEB was entirely voluntary, and they could withdraw and sell power to other customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project charge does not fall within either recognized exception to the general rule that monetary assessments are not takings,\u201d Judge Neumann said.<\/p>\n
Maine lawmakers expanded NEB in 2019 to encourage developers to install \u201ccommunity\u201d solar projects of up to 5 megawatts with special electric rates paid for by electric customers.<\/p>\n
The policy sparked a boom in solar development in Maine, but costs of the program were tied to overall electric prices which rose sharply in recent years.<\/p>\n
In 2026 lawmakers curtailed the program and added the new charges to offset electric ratepayers\u2019 expenses.<\/p>\n
An attorney representing the companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
But Kevin Cray, vice president of existing markets and regulatory affairs for the Coalition for Community Solar Access said the group\u00a0was\u00a0disappointed by the decision and believed in the merits of the suit\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis retroactive policy change chills economic investment, undermines market certainty, and punishes American companies that followed the law, while ignoring the Maine Department of Energy Resources\u2019 report that natural gas, not solar or wind, is the real driver of soaring power prices,\u201d Cray said in a press release.<\/p>\n
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge has dealt a blow to solar companies\u2019 attempt to block a rollback of state incentives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-300364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}