Federal Permitting Package Puts Community Power on the National Agenda

Bipartisan Senate Bill Includes Provisions to Open Wholesale Electricity Markets to Home Batteries and Rooftop Solar, and to Speed Up Local Permitting

Washington, D.C. — The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, the Senate’s new permitting reform package introduced Wednesday, includes key provisions that would for the first time give the batteries, rooftop solar, and smart thermostats powering American homes, businesses, and public buildings a clear path into wholesale electricity markets that set power prices across much of the country. Opening those markets to distributed generation would help meet growing demand with more available supply.

“On the hottest days, when power is most expensive, batteries in our homes and communities can send electricity back to the grid, and that helps keep bills down for everyone,” said Mary Rafferty, executive director of Common Charge. “The batteries and solar panels already on homes, businesses, and in local communities are ready to help the grid right now. Seeing that recognized in a bipartisan federal bill shows how much ground this conversation has gained in Washington. It’s the same momentum we’ve seen in statehouses all year.”

Local power can be a battery in a garage, solar panels on a school, or a community solar project and shared battery serving an entire neighborhood. When smart devices are linked into local power networks, they can send power back to the grid during the hours it’s most needed. This extra flexibility is critical at a time when demand is climbing and new power plants are costly and take years to build.

The bill’s local energy provisions would require grid operators to open their wholesale markets to local power networks within 18 months, so that groups of home batteries, rooftop solar, and other local resources could sell into the same markets as power plants. Those resources could take part in state programs and wholesale markets at the same time, and anyone who is paid twice for the same service would face penalties. Utilities would have to connect eligible resources promptly and share the data needed for billing, while states would keep authority over local interconnection. The bill would also create a $20 million-a-year U.S. Energy Department program to help local governments approve rooftop solar, home batteries, and EV chargers faster.