Sec. 245. Distributed renewable energy
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In this section: The term authority having jurisdiction means any State, county, local, or Tribal office or official with jurisdiction— to issue permits; to conduct inspections to enforce the requirements of a relevant code or standard; or to approve the installation of, or the equipment and materials used in the installation of, qualifying distributed energy systems. The term distributed energy system installer means an entity or individual— with knowledge and skills relating to— the construction and operation of the equipment used in qualifying distributed energy systems; and the installation of qualifying distributed energy systems; and that has employed safety training to recognize and avoid the hazards involved in constructing, operating, and installing qualifying distributed energy systems.
The term qualifying distributed energy system means any equipment or materials installed in, on, or near a residential, commercial, or industrial building to support onsite or local energy use, including— to generate electricity from distributed renewable energy sources, including from— solar photovoltaic modules or similar solar energy technologies; wind power systems; and hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cell systems; to store and discharge electricity from batteries with a capacity of at least 2 kilowatt hours; to charge a plug-in electric drive vehicle at a power rate of at least 2 kilowatts; to refuel a fuel cell electric vehicle; or to generate electricity from fuel cell systems with a capacity of at least 2 kilowatt hours.
The term Secretary means the Secretary of Energy. Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary, in consultation with trade associations and other entities representing distributed energy system installers and organizations representing State, local, and Tribal governments engaged in permitting, shall establish and carry out a program to establish a voluntary streamlined permitting process for local permitting and inspection of qualifying distributed energy systems, in concert with relevant national consensus-based codes and specifications and standards referenced therein.
In carrying out the program established under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall— facilitate the development and maintenance of a streamlined permitting process that includes a national online permitting platform for expediting, standardizing, and streamlining permitting, that authorities having jurisdiction may use to receive, review, and approve permit applications relating to qualifying distributed energy systems; establish a model expedited permit-to-build protocol for qualifying distributed energy systems; provide technical assistance to authorities having jurisdiction on using and adopting— the streamlined permitting process described in subparagraph (A); and the model expedited permit-to-build protocol described in subparagraph (B); develop and maintain a voluntary national inspection protocol integrated with the national online permitting system described in subparagraphs
(A)and
(B)and related tools to expedite, standardize, and streamline the inspection of qualifying distributed energy systems, including— by investigating the potential for using remote inspections; and by investigating the potential for sample-based inspection for distributed energy system installers with a demonstrated track record of high-quality work; and take any other action to expedite, standardize, streamline, or improve the process for permitting, inspecting, or interconnecting qualifying distributed energy systems. The Secretary shall— provide technical assistance to authorities having jurisdiction, any administrator of a national online permitting platform, government software providers, and any other entity determined appropriate by the Secretary in carrying out the activities described in paragraph (2); and provide such financial assistance as the Secretary determines appropriate from any funds appropriated to carry out this section. The Secretary shall recognize and certify certain communities as Distributed Energy Opportunity Communities . The Secretary may certify a State, local community, or Tribe as a Distributed Energy Opportunity Community if that State, local community, or Tribe has adopted and implemented the model expedited permit-to-build protocol established under the program established under subsection (b). The Secretary may confer a certification under paragraph
(1)through existing programs of the Department of Energy. The Secretary may award competitive grants, using funds appropriated to the Secretary to carry out this section, to encourage communities to adopt the model expedited permit-to-build protocol and the standardized inspection process established under the program established under subsection (b). There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary to carry out this section $20,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2031.