The Program Administrator recently received the following inquiry: “In SPS (Xcel) service territory, would for-profit entities with accounts under the Secondary General Service rate qualify as small commercial, or would only SPS for-profit entity accounts under the Small General Service rate qualify?” Such an entity would be treated as a “small commercial retail customer,” and thus, eligible to become a subscriber, as long as the entity’s peak load, as determined according to SPS’s Secondary General Service tariff, does not exceed 50 kW.
The Community Solar Act defines “subscriber” as “a retail customer of a qualifying utility that owns a subscription to a community solar facility and that is by rate class a residential retail customer or a small commercial retail customer or, regardless of rate class, is a nonprofit organization, a religious organization, an Indian nation, tribe or pueblo or tribal entity, a municipality or a county in the state, a charter, private or public school as defined in Section 22-1-2 NMSA 1978, a community college as defined in Section 21-13-2 NMSA 1978 or a public housing authority . . ..” NMSA 1978, § 62-16B-2(L) (2021) (boldface added).
SPS’s Secondary General Service tariff is distinct from SPS’s Small General Service tariff, with the former applying to qualifying customers with a peak load greater than 25 kW and the latter applying to qualifying customers with a peak load no greater than 25 kW. SPS’s Small General Service tariff limits peak load to 25 kW, whereas EPE’s comparable Small Commercial General Service Rate and PNM’s comparable Small Power Rate limit their applicability to qualifying customers with peak loads less than 50 kW. Thus, for the purposes of consistency across utilities, the Program Administrator would apply the 50 kW limit to SPS’s Secondary General Service customers as well.
Please contact the Program Administrator at [email protected] or (877) 794-0109 with any questions.
