MassCEC - Commonwealth Wind Incentive Program - Commercial Wind Initiative Loan

Summary

This loan program is closed.  The summary provided below is for information only.

Through the Commonwealth Wind Incentive Program – the Commercial Wind Initiative, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) has offered unsecured loans up to $250,000 for pre-development activities for commercial wind projects (2 MW or greater) that will serve the whole-sale energy markets or for projects that do not qualify for net metering but provide on-site use. MassCEC is the administrator of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust (RET), the state's clean energy fund. There is a separate grant program available for feasibility studies under the Commercial Wind Initiative.*

The Commercial Wind loans have been available for generating facilities 2 MW and greater. Projects must owned by commercial, industrial, institutional (including not-for-profit), or public entities served by one of the investor-owned electric distribution utilities in Massachusetts -- Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light (Unitil), Massachusetts Electric (National Grid), Nantucket Electric (National Grid), NSTAR Electric, or Western Massachusetts Electric. In addition, customers of any Municipal Light Plant (MLP) Department that pays into the RET are also eligible (see MassCEC's website for additional information on which MLP's have joined the RET). Furthermore, applicants must have and demonstrate site control (meaning that they have legal control of the project site, through executed agreement or selection to enter into an agreement). The projects must utilize commercially-available wind technology and the wind resources (average annual wind speed) must be at least 6 meters per second at 70 meters above actual ground level.

Only applications that meet the eligibility criteria will be evaluated. Applicants are expected to have already completed fatal flaw analysis and feasibility studies and will be evaluated on the thoroughness of those studies in addition to the business plan, community acceptance (demonstrated), work plan structure, risks identification and strategy for overcoming those, development team expertise and experience, financial analysis, level and type of cost-share, and potential benefits to state ratepayers.

Construction may not be funded with the pre-development loan. Project activities eligible for the loan have included: site purchase or lease agreement finalizations, additional environmental analyses and impact studies, interconnection, permitting costs, refinement of a development strategy, detailed financial analysis, participation in ISO-NE's Forward Capacity Market process, among others.


*Developers cannot apply for both the grant and the loan during the same round.