The brand-new Massachusetts program designed to encourage commercial solar development in the state is officially closed to new applicants for the first block of funding. How long did it take for the $4 million Block 1 to sell out? Well, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center opened up to solicitations for the first block of funding at 2:00pm today; and the email to Massachusetts Solar Stakeholders announcing that sufficient applications had been received went out at 5:38pm today. So I guess I exaggerated above–it took over three and a half hours to sell out.

Of course, the projects that applied for funding today have been on edge for months waiting for this new program to come through after Massachusetts ran out of solar funding last year. There was quite a build-up to get through. And because applications that don’t get funded this time around will not be held over to Block 2, new projects have the same chance of success as older ones.

The Commonwealth Solar Stimulus program is only for solar panel installations 5-200kw in size, so small residential systems can still apply for funds from the $1 million allocated to the Commonwealth Solar II Rebate program.