The City of Boston Zoning Commission adopted new zoning for Small Clean Energy Infrastructure this week. The measure is also in line with Boston’s climate resiliency goals. Now certain solar arrays, wind turbines, battery storage and more will go through a consolidated permitting process and must be approved within one year. All municipalities in the state are expected to be in compliance by Oct. 1.
“The goal is to make it easier for everybody, and this is a big part of the puzzle of meeting our city’s climate goals and the state climate goals. It’s just to help enable this new infrastructure as much as we can,” said Travis Anderson, the senior infrastructure and energy planner at the City of Boston Planning Dept.
The impetus comes from the Climate Act of 2024 which included permitting reform as one of its core measures. Massachusetts has hundreds of municipalities, some with little to no professional staff to approve renewable energy projects. The result is that approvals can take years to go through. The Massachusetts Dept. of Energy Resources (DOER) was charged with issuing Clean Energy Siting & Permitting Regulations (225 CMR 29.00) which serve as “guideposts” for municipalities to develop more streamlined permitting processes.
The regulations apply to projects under a certain size, such as battery energy storage with capacity of less than 100 MWh, solar installations less than 25 MW, anaerobic digestion facilities less than 25 MW, and wind facilities less than 25 MW. Larger projects will go to the state Energy Facility Siting Board.
According to a DOER spokesperson, the department has consistently heard from developers that projects are more expensive and difficult to get financed when there is so much uncertainty about when they will be complete and start generating returns. DOER hopes that the one-year approval requirement will help Massachusetts be a more attractive place for development.
There is a stipulation in the new regulations that allows a community to pass along a proposal to the Energy Facility and Siting Board if they do not have the capacity to approve it within one year, said the same DOER spokesperson.
In Boston, entities such as the Boston Water Sewer Commission, the Boston Public Health Commission, the Planning Dept., and a few others, will now run their proposal reviews in parallel and must come up with a final decision within a 12-month time frame.
Consolidated permitting provides an opportunity to deliver coordinated feedback to the applicant so they have the opportunity to revise their designs accordingly. “It’s really having everyone sort of work in concert with each other and deconflict any issues,” said Anderson.
