Substitute House Bill 1804 amends existing community solar statutes and adds a new section. It amends RCW 80.28.370 and RCW 82.16.170 and states it will amend RCW 82.16.182, 82.16.183, and 82.16.184 and create a new section. The bill defines "community solar company," "community solar project," "project participant," and related terms, and it gives the Washington State University extension energy program (WSU extension energy program) authority to precertify and certify community solar projects and to authorize low‑income community solar incentive payments. The bill makes several procedural and financial changes: it establishes a precertification and certification process administered by WSU, requires a 50% incentive payment at precertification with the remainder at final certification, sets statewide and biennial funding caps and allocation priorities (including minimum set‑asides for projects 199 kW or smaller, nonprofits, and tribal governments), and allows WSU to set and revise targeted installed cost metrics. It creates documentation, reporting, and recordkeeping requirements for project administrators (including annual and ten‑year reporting and disclosure to participants), authorizes provisional certifications, and requires Department of Labor and Industries certification that certain larger projects comply with apprentice utilization and prevailing wage laws. The bill also creates tax credit rules for light and power businesses to mirror incentive payments, specifies limits and conditions on those credits, and makes violations of certain provisions subject to the state consumer protection act. The bill changes procedural and penalty rules: it allows WSU to require repayment with interest if precertification payments exceed final eligibility or if projects fail to provide direct benefits; it treats discriminatory utility rate or program rules as prohibited and directs the utilities and transportation commission and consumer‑owned utilities to publish lists of administrators and projects; utility participation in the incentive program is voluntary and utilities may opt out by notice. The bill sets expiration and deadline provisions: no new certifications after June 30, 2035; the section expires June 30, 2038; tax credit eligibility expires June 30, 2036; and the entire act is null and void if specific funding is not provided in the omnibus appropriations act by June 30, 2025. Relevant details and some statutory text are missing from the provided excerpts. The full amended text of RCW 82.16.182, RCW 82.16.183, RCW 82.16.184, the complete disclosure requirements for participants, and some subsection provisions and numerical values are not included here, so specific eligibility criteria, some definitions, and the identity of the department referenced for tax credit claims cannot be confirmed from these extracts.

If enacted, the bill creates a formal low‑income community solar program run by the WSU extension energy program that precertifies and certifies projects, holds and distributes incentive payments (50% at precertification, remainder at certification) from a capped statewide pool ($100 million total, with biennial limits and set‑asides including at least $50 million reserved for projects 199 kW or smaller, at least $2 million for nonprofits, and at least $2 million for tribes), and requires administrators to meet registration, disclosure, reporting, and labor documentation rules (projects >199 kW must meet apprentice and prevailing wage documentation). Project administrators, utilities, and contractors will face new administrative duties and deadlines: administrators must provide detailed disclosures to subscribers, keep multi‑year records, apply for precertification and certification within set timeframes, and may have to repay incentive funds with interest if a project fails to certify, underperforms, or no longer provides the claimed low‑income benefits. The practical effects concentrate responsibilities and financial risk on nonutility and utility project administrators and put WSU in charge of allocating money and approval decisions; utilities must remit certified incentive payments within 60 days and cannot unduly discriminate against nonutility projects but may opt in or opt out of participation, and light and power businesses can claim limited tax credits for incentives paid subject to caps. Implementation details affecting eligibility, some disclosure items, and certain subsections are missing from the extracted text, and the entire act is contingent on specific appropriations by June 30, 2025 and includes sunset dates for certification and some program sections through 2035–2038, creating uncertainty about long‑term availability and timing of funding.