The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA, Uniondale, New York, U.S.) has approved a new feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, with a cap of 50 MW of PV over the next two years.

LIPA's CLEAN Solar Initiative will pay USD 0.22/kWh for PV plants between 50 kW and 20 MW under 20-year contracts. LIPA will begin accepting applications under the program on July 16th, 2012, and projects connected before this date will not be eligible to participate in the program.

"LIPA’s CLEAN Solar Initiative is an important part of the NY-Sun Initiative," said Tom Congdon, Assistant Secretary for Energy in New York State Governor Cuomo’s administration.

"The CLEAN Solar Initiative will create green jobs, expand our solar capacity, and lead to a long-term reduction of the cost of solar in New York."

Under the program, 5 MW of capacity will be reserved for PV plants up to 150 kW, 10 MW will be reserved for PV plants between 150 kW and 500 kW, and 35 MW will be unreserved.

U.S. experiments with feed-in tariffs at the local level

A number of U.S utilities, municipalities and states have approved feed-in tariffs, however such policies typically deviate from the European model in one or more aspects, and few have led to rapid growth in PV markets.

A notable exception is the feed-in tariff in Gainesville, Florida, which is closely modeled on European FITs and continues to be subscribed fully year after year.

2012-07-03 | Courtesy: LIPA | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

Our editorial selection of breaking solar news is published at:
www.solarserver.com/solar-magazine/solar-news/top-solar-news.html