In October 2004, the Rockingham County Board of Supervisors approved a zoning ordinance for small wind energy systems, the first of its kind in Virginia. Students at James Madison University drafted the original ordinance with guidance from members of the Virginia Wind Energy Collaborative (VWEC) and assistance from members of Rockingham County's planning board.

Although net metering is not required, the ordinance complements the state's net-metering regulations and requires compliance with the Uniform Statewide Building Code, FAA Regulations, National Electrical Code, and Virginia Regulations Governing Net Metering.

Other key provisions include:

• Use of wind turbine must be primarily to reduce

Brief

Montana's solar and wind easement provisions allow property owners to create solar and wind easements for the purpose of protecting and maintaining proper access to sunlight and wind. Solar easements should be negotiated with neighboring property owners. Montana's solar easement law was enacted in 1979; the wind easement law was originally enacted in 1983.

Solar Easements:

An easement must be created in writing and is subject to the same conveyancing and instrument recording requirements as other easements on real property. The easement must specify at least (1) the vertical and horizontal angles, expressed in degrees, at which the solar

The City of Ashland has been promoting the use of solar energy since 1981, when it passed one of the first city-wide solar access protection ordinances in the United States. This ordinance contains solar setback provisions designed to ensure that shadows at the northern property line do not exceed a certain height, depending on the zone in which the property is located.

Ashland also includes Solar Orientation Standards for land divisions that create lots in residential zones. The requirements being (A) Where the site and location permit, layout new streets as close as possible to a north-south and east-west axis

New Mexico's Solar Rights Act (1977) and Solar Recordation Act (1983) allow property owners to create solar easements for the purpose of protecting and maintaining proper access to sunlight. The Solar Rights Act established the right to use solar energy as a property right. The solar right prevents neighboring property owners from constructing new buildings or planting new trees which would block their access to the sun.

The Solar Recordation Act describes the procedures for filing a solar right through the County Clerk's Office. The property owner seeking the solar right must give advanced notice to the adjacent property owners

The City of Gainesville requires the design process for buildings within its public services and operations (PS) district to take into consideration current and future solar access. In addition, trees that are required by landscaping ordinances may be relocated if they conflict with planned solar energy generation. Other regulated trees may be removed if they prevent reasonable development of the site, including the installation of solar energy equipment.

NOTE: In January 2018, National Grid filed approval of its revised net metering tariff to include the changed adopted by RI legislation to expand community solar (remote net metering) to include educational institutions, hospitals, and non-profit corporations. It also removes the 30 MW cap on maximum aggregage amount of remote net metering for public entity facilities, multi-municipal collaboratives, educational institutions, federal government, hospitals or nonprofits.  

Rhode Island allows net metering for systems up to ten megawatts (MW) in capacity that are designed to generate up to 100% of the electricity that a home or other facility uses. The net metered

Eligibility and Availability

In 1988 the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) adopted terms and conditions of purchase that govern the supplying and delivering of power to a cooperative/utility’s electric system by a small power producer or cogenerator (as the terms are respectively defined under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978) of 100 kilowatts or less.

Under the adopted rules, net metering is available to all customer classes. There is no limit on the amount of aggregate net-metered capacity, and utilities are not allowed to require new liability insurance as a condition for interconnection.

In April 2014 Oklahoma’s governor signed

Eligibility and Availability

North Dakota's net metering policy, adopted in 1991 by the state Public Service Commission (PSC), applies to renewable energy systems and combined heat and power (CHP) systems up to 100 kilowatts (kW) in capacity.* Net metering is available to all customers of investor-owned electric utilities; it is not available to customers of municipal utilities or electric cooperatives.

Net Excess Generation

If a customer has net excess generation (NEG) at the end of a monthly billing period, the utility must purchase the NEG at the utility's avoided cost rate.

Aggregate Capacity Limit

There is no specified statewide limit

Eligibility and Availability

Net metering is available to all "qualifying facilities" (QFs), as defined by the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), which pertains to renewable energy systems and combined heat and power systems up to 80 megawatts (MW) in capacity. There is no statewide cap on the aggregate capacity of net-metered systems.

All utilities subject to Public Regulation Commission (PRC) jurisdiction must offer net metering. (Municipal utilities, which are not regulated by the PRC, are exempt.) Customers are required to be billed for service in accordance with the rate structure and monthly charges that the customer

New Hampshire requires all utilities selling electricity in the state to offer net metering to customers who own or operate systems up to one megawatt (MW) of capacity that generates electricity using solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, tidal, wave, biomass, landfill gas, bio-oil, or biodiesel. Combined heat and power (CHP) systems that use natural gas, wood pellets, hydrogen, propane, or heating oil are also eligible.*

System Capacity Limit

The New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission’s (PUC) rules for net metering distinguish between small customer-generators (up to 100 kilowatts) and large customer-generators (greater than 100 kW and up to 1 MW). The