Connecticut's 63.4-MW solar plan draws utility skepticism on offtake

Connecticut's plan to secure 63.4 megawatts of new solar capacity from arrays that have yet to be built rests on whether a major utility will agree to buy the power they produce. Canary Media reported that the utility's reluctance to commit to purchasing power from some of the projects is raising questions about the prospects for success.

The state announced the plan last month, according to the report, and the target is a statement of intent: megawatts reach construction when somebody signs for the output. What the coverage does not say is how far the reluctance reaches, how many projects it touches, which utility holds the position, or what stands behind it.

Those gaps carry the story. Reluctance attached to one array inside a larger procurement is an irritation a program absorbs. Reluctance that covers most of the program would leave the state's number exposed. That reading of the stakes is mine; the report stops at the questions, and the record so far does not resolve them.

For anyone underwriting into a state procurement, the gap between a target and a contracted revenue stream is the investment case. An offtake agreement is the commitment lenders look for before a development option becomes a project they will finance; without one, the developer holds the merchant risk on top of the timing risk on construction and financing. Connecticut's 63.4 megawatts sit on the unsigned side of that line for at least some of the projects Canary Media describes.

What would settle it is a signed contract or a revised solicitation from the state, and the report mentions neither. The question left open is whether the utility's hesitation is a position it carries into negotiations over price and terms, or a judgment that these projects as structured are not ones it wants to serve. Until Connecticut has a counterparty, 63.4 megawatts is a figure in a plan rather than capacity on a grid.

Worth noting for the wider renewables pipeline: state-mandated capacity targets and the offtake contracts that finance them are separate instruments, and the second is the one that moves capital. Connecticut's number is small enough that a single utility's posture can decide it.