Rhode Island revises net-metering rules for portable solar

Rhode Island lawmakers are rewriting the state’s net-metering rules so portable solar generation devices can fit inside them. Net-metering is the system that lets customers earn electricity credits for power they send back to the grid, and this bill would bring a new kind of small-scale solar setup into that framework.

For households and community projects, that matters because the value of solar often depends less on the panels themselves than on whether the law knows how to count them.

Shared solar gets a clearer lane

The proposal also reshapes the rules for community remote net-metering, the setup that lets one solar facility spread credits across multiple accounts. Under the revised definition, those systems would need to allocate credits to at least one account tied to low- or moderate-income housing eligible credit recipients, or to three eligible credit-recipient customer accounts.

That gives shared projects a more explicit path into the program, especially when they are built for people who may not be able to put panels on their own roof but can still benefit from the electricity credits.

The caps do not go away

The bill keeps the guardrails around the credits. No more than 50% of the credits produced by a system could go to one eligible credit recipient, and at least 50% would have to go to the remaining eligible recipients within the per-recipient cap.

The credits also could not exceed the usage of the eligible accounts, with projected annual consumption allowed until a full three-year average becomes available. Available key vote records show the bill advanced without recorded no votes.