House Bill 121 Summary

• Establishes the Mississippi Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Act requiring electrical utilities with 100,000+ customer accounts to develop programs promoting renewable energy facilities, energy storage, and load management, with a minimum 2% aggregate capacity target by 2024.

• Creates net energy metering program allowing customer-generators with renewable systems up to 20 kW (residential) or 1,000 kW (commercial) to offset energy usage, with excess generation credited annually at the utility's avoided cost rate, capped at 2% of utility peak demand.

• Permits third-party leasing of renewable energy facilities to customer-generator lessees under Public Utilities Staff certification, with capacity limits of 2% of peak demand (0.01% for utilities generating over 50% renewable energy).

• Authorizes utilities to recover DER program costs through a separate fuel cost component with annual caps of $12 per residential account, $120 per commercial account, and $1,200 per industrial account.

• Requires the Public Service Commission to establish interconnection standards for renewable facilities under 2,000 kW and directs utilities and electric cooperatives to report on cost-shifting impacts of distributed energy resources by specified deadlines.