LIPA to expand energy-buying program

The Long Island Power Authority Friday is set to unveil a program that pays businesses and others who produce solar energy in the same way LIPA pays for power from larger plants.

The so-called feed-in tariff, part of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's NY-SUN Initiative unveiled Thursday, will create a new 50-megawatt program in which LIPA will pay 22 cents a kilowatt hour for solar energy from systems installed on commercial rooftops and elsewhere. It differs from traditional programs in which LIPA helps subsidize system costs up front through cash rebates, which will continue.

Michael Hervey, LIPA's chief operating officer, will announce the measure at a Solar Energy Policies and Opportunities conference at Molloy College's Sustainability Institute in Farmingdale Friday. He'll also discuss it at the Amityville home of the authority's 5,000th solar customer.

"It represents a transition to a more market-based system for providing solar power," said Neal Lewis, executive director of Molloy's Sustainability Institute and a LIPA trustee.

Contracts for the program are for 20 years.

Lewis said that while the 22 cents LIPA will pay was considered low by some installers, he believes it strikes a balance, because too high a payment could be a burden to LIPA ratepayers.

The program, first reported in Newsday in January, must be approved by LIPA trustees. Solar programs are gaining in popularity on Long Island. LIPA Friday will also announce that it has provided rebates that have funded 5,000 solar energy systems. As part of Cuomo's solar plan, the state Public Service Commission approved a request by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to double funding for customer-sited solar electric systems to $432 million over the next four years.