Stanley Florek of Tangerine Solar successfully lobbies to include co-ops in the Washington state community solar project investment cost recovery incentives
Last year, Washington state adopted the community solar project investment cost recovery incentive to encourage communities to develop solar projects. Unfortunately, the way the legislation was originally written, there could be only one incentive per investor so a group of investors could not pool their resources to build solar projects and each receive the incentive payment. Recognizing this problem, the legislature planned to allow the incentive to be passed through to individual owners of an LLC that developed a solar project. Stanley Florek pointed out that cooperatives should also be allowed to receive these passed through incentives. The legislature listened to him and added cooperatives to the list of types of entities eligible for this pass through treatment.
One benefit of allowing cooperatives to participate is that there is a state securities registration exemption for Washington cooperatives. So promoters of community energy projects can use the co-op structure to bring in a diverse group of investors without having to register a public offering.
Click here for the bill.
Great job Stanley!
