SECTION 1. Chapter 164 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 92C the following 3 sections:

Section 92D. Customer access to a modern grid is a right and the public utility obligation to serve customers requires distribution companies to facilitate such access at reasonable costs and on reasonable terms. The capability and accessibility of the Commonwealth’s electrical system must be facilitated by investments in the electric grid that are aligned with the Commonwealth’s ambitious climate, renewable energy, and economic development goals. The implementation and periodic update of grid modernization efforts and formal interconnection standards to ensure fair, reasonable, and transparent customer grid access is essential to the achievement of the Commonwealth’s goals. As distribution companies pursue grid modernization efforts, related technical, operational, policy and regulatory opportunities and challenges must continuously be examined and addressed to ensure non-discriminatory customer access and to achieve the full potential of a modern grid. Establishing frameworks for continuous and collaborative efforts will assist utilities, regulators, distributed energy resource developers and other stakeholders to timely and effectively address these issues. The department shall establish standards to ensure reasonable and timely access to the grid for all customers and to ensure that distribution companies undertake investments and process improvements to facilitate the transformation of the Commonwealth’s electrical grid to align with the Commonwealth’s ambitious climate, energy, equity and economic development goals.

Section 92E. (a) No customer shall be denied the right to interconnect a distributed generation facility, energy storage system or a combined distributed generation facility and energy storage system. The department shall promulgate rules: (i) specifying a limit of the time that may elapse from the date of initial interconnection application to the receipt of an interconnection services agreement for various sizes and types of distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems; (ii) specifying a limit of the time that may elapse from the distribution company’s commencement of design of required interconnection-related upgrades and authorization to interconnect for various sizes and types of distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems; and (iii) requiring distribution companies to enable the interconnection of distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems in accordance with the schedule promulgated by the department.

(b) Rules adopted by the department under this section shall include: (i) provisions to track the performance of distribution companies under these rules; (ii) mechanisms to ensure compliance by distribution companies with the schedule and rules required by this section including revisions to existing timeline enforcement mechanisms; (iii) mechanisms to enable customers to seek department review and enforcement of the schedule and rules required by this section; and (iv) provisions for expeditiously resolving disputes between customers and distribution companies.

(c) The department shall establish a cost allocation framework to implement the electric-sector modernization plans established by section 92B. The electric-sector modernization plans shall identify (i) an amount, in megawatts of alternating current, of incremental grid hosting capacity that will be available to interconnect distributed generation and energy storage systems upon implementation of the plans; and (ii) a proportional share of the benefits of the electric-sector modernization plans that is attributable to distributed generation and energy storage systems. The department shall establish a uniform fee to be assessed to interconnecting customers of system sizes by applying the proportional share of benefits attributable to distributed generation and energy storage to the total number of megawatts of capacity enabled by the plans. This shall result in a dollar amount per kilowatt AC to be assessed to interconnecting customers based on project export capacity for their use of the grid capacity enabled by the plans. Such fee shall be uniform across a utility’s service territory regardless of the customer’s point of interconnection. Interconnecting customers above 60 kW may be assessed additional interconnection costs for upgrades not included in the approved electric-sector modernization plans.

For projects with an export capacity between 60 kW and 500 kW the following standardized interconnection cost allocation shall apply to customers for distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems: (i) no customer shall be charged more than $100/kW AC of export capacity to interconnect distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems; and (ii) any costs incurred by the distribution company for interconnecting a distributed generation facility or energy storage system that exceed $100/kW AC of export capacity shall be included in the distribution company’s revenue requirement and recovered through the company’s rate base.

For projects with an export capacity that does not exceed 60kW, the following standardized interconnection cost allocation shall apply to customers for distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems: (i) no customer shall be charged more than $25/kW AC of export capacity to interconnect distributed generation facilities and energy storage systems; and (ii) such fee shall be inclusive of interconnection costs for upgrades not included in the approved electric-sector modernization plans including, but not limited to, shared service distribution system upgrades; and (iii) any costs incurred by the distribution company for interconnecting a distributed generation facility or energy storage system that exceed $25/kW AC of export capacity shall be included in the distribution company’s revenue requirement and recovered through the company’s rate base.

(d) The department shall adopt regulations requiring distribution companies to establish procedures to allow distributed generation customers to self-construct interconnection facilities. Such regulations shall direct distribution companies to consider distributed generation customer self-construction of interconnection infrastructure as an option for reducing costs or timelines in all cases.

(e) The department shall establish a permanent office of a distributed generation and clean energy ombudsperson to advocate for improvements to distribution company interconnection processes and practices and to receive and facilitate the resolution of disputes between distributed generation customers and the distribution companies. The department shall immediately appoint an ombudsperson to lead such office. The office of the ombudsperson shall be staffed with two or more individuals, one of whom shall be an expert in the interconnection tariff and department precedent and one of whom shall be an expert in technical solutions and standards for interconnecting distributed generation customers. The ombudsperson may recommend that the department impose civil penalties upon a finding that a distribution company has intentionally or negligently violated one or more requirements of the interconnection tariff, that the company has exhibited a pattern or history of violating such tariff, or that the company has failed to provide an acceptable level of customer service for a distributed generation customer or customers. In considering penalties under this section, the ombudsperson and the department shall consider the severity of the violation, the financial impact upon the distribution customer or customers, the distribution company’s history of violations and customer service, and other factors that may be relevant to determining the level of penalty that may be appropriate. The department may direct that all or a portion of a penalty take the form of restitution to be paid to an affected distribution customer. Penalties imposed by the department shall be effective upon the date they are imposed.

Section 92F. (a) There is hereby established within the department a permanent and open interconnection working group for the purpose of considering improvements to interconnection tariffs and interconnection technical standards and processes. The working group shall be facilitated by the office of the ombudsperson and shall meet no less frequently than 4 times per year.

(b) The working group shall study and make recommendations on topics including, but not limited to: (i) cost and best available technology for interconnecting and metering distributed generation, energy storage systems, and other distributed energy resources; (ii) process improvements to improve timeliness and efficiency of distributed generation and storage interconnection; (iii) processes for identifying and achieving distribution system upgrade cost avoidance through the use of advanced inverter functions and other non-wires solutions, along with earning sharing mechanisms for capital investment deferrals; (iv) processes and customer service improvements for interconnecting customers adopting distributed generation and energy storage; (v) revisions to utility interconnection and metering standards that impact distributed energy resources and/or exporting and non-exporting energy storage systems; (vi) implementation of programs, guidelines, and schedules for grid-enabling technologies and platforms such as distributed energy resource management systems; and (vii) without limitation, such other technical, policy, and tariff issues related to and affecting interconnection performance and customer service for distributed generation and energy storage customers in the commonwealth, as determined by the working group. The chairs may jointly create subcommittees of the working group to focus on specific issues of importance, and may invite technical or policy experts to assist the working group in its work.

(c) The office of the ombudsperson shall develop and submit a report detailing consensus recommendations of the working group and, if applicable, additional recommendations for which consensus was not reached to the department and the clerks of the house of representatives and senate with recommendations for improvements to interconnection oversight and reporting, interconnection tariffs and such other topics designated to the working group in subsection (b), within 180 days of its first meeting, and every 180 days thereafter. Such report shall include consensus recommendations of the working group and, if applicable, additional recommendations for which consensus was not reached. The department shall within 180 days of the report filing issue an order addressing the recommendations of the working group. The order shall specify those recommendations adopted and explain in detail the reasons for rejecting any recommendations not adopted.

SECTION 2. The rules required by subsection (b) of section 92E of chapter 164 of the General Laws shall be promulgated by the department of public utilities within 270 days of the effective date of this act.

SECTION 3. The office of the ombudsperson required by section 92E of chapter 164 of the General Laws shall be established by the department of public utilities within 180 days of the effective date of this act.