Bill > S3078

Introduced Session

This bill amends the "Offshore Wind Economic Development Act" to provide that the Board of Public Utilities ("BPU") may not require ratepayers to pay or prepay any costs associated with the subsidies for qualified offshore wind projects approved by the BPU. Under current law, the BPU administers an offshore wind renewable energy certificate ("OREC") program that permits qualified offshore wind projects to sell ORECs to electric power suppliers and basic generation service providers at a price and for a time period determined by order of the BPU. An OREC is a portion of the mechanism in which subsidies are provided for offshore wind projects by allowing eligible projects to be credited with saleable ORECs for each megawatt-hour generated by the project and delivered to the transmission grid. However, pursuant to regulations adopted by the BPU, the State currently requires electric public utilities to impose an OREC surcharge on ratepayers to pre-collect the costs of the project subsidy. Ratepayers are later refunded based on the revenue generated from the sale of ORECs. This bill prohibits the BPU from requiring ratepayers to make any payments or prepayments for any part of the subsidy for a qualified offshore wind project, including, but not limited to, an OREC surcharge or any other similar fee or rate intended to recover the costs of the subsidy.

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Holly Schepisi (R)*, 

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee (on 04/11/2024)

Official Document