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Colorado Springs Utilities will take another run at enacting new fees for residents who connect their home solar panels to the power grid as the popularity of solar energy continues to grow.
At a Utilities Board committee meeting scheduled for May 18, staff members are expected to present a new model for updating the net metering program with new fee structures. The program, which covers nearly 11,000 customers in Colorado Springs, credits homes for the excess solar power they produce and provide to the city’s electrical grid.
Utilities staff have argued that the system has led to a growing gap between the solar and non-solar bills, adding more cost to the power Utilities has to provide during the evening hours. Over the past four months, Utilities conducted surveys and focus groups to test cost increases that solar customers would be more likely to support.
“There’s a very deep belief that they’re contributing to their own personal energy goals and to the community. We want to make sure that we provide them some autonomy to make choices. That’ll be a very helpful part of getting their buy-in,” said Brittany Harrison, an energy strategy supervisor for Utilities.
Utilities conducted a pair of focus groups at the beginning of April about the solar program, one with 12 solar customers and a second with nine non-solar customers. Utilities shared the results with its board — composed of City Council members — during a working committee meeting on April 20, and it will use the findings to create the upcoming recommendations.
Last year, Utilities proposed a “demand charge” that it would add to the electricity bills of customers in the solar net metering program. The fee would have charged customers more for power used between 5 and 9 p.m. based on their maximum use during the month.
The City Council narrowly voted to remove that charge from the overall rate case after dozens of solar customers and providers attended a council meeting to protest the proposal.
Debra Fortenberry added solar panels to the roof of her house near Bear Creek Regional Park in 2023 and joined the net metering program soon after. The east-facing panels produced more than 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity over the course of April.
Fortenberry accepted that there would likely be increased costs in the net metering program but wanted them to come from a friendly place.
She worried that Utilities was trying to blame solar customers for the increases to other residents’ utility bills.
“There was a large degree of bias against rooftop solar in that (April committee) meeting. We want the Utilities Board to understand that what they’re getting about rooftop solar comes from that place of bias,” Fortenberry said.
The debate over the next version of the program comes as Colorado makes it easier for residents to add solar panels to their homes. On Thursday, Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law permitting the use of portable plug-in solar panels.
Utilities spokesperson Amy Trinidad said the agency will gather public feedback on the proposed plan between May 18 and the Utilities Board meeting in June. If approved, the rate changes would go to the City Council for a vote later this summer.
Leslie Smith, who led the focus groups for Utilities, said the solar customers wanted direct and transparent information from Utilities about future changes to the program. Smith said some users added the panels primarily for environmental reasons, while others wanted to save money on their bills.
Residential solar panels provide around 50 megawatts of power to the city grid, according to Utilities data from the end of 2025. In comparison, the combined power generated from the six large solar arrays Utilities contracts is around 289 megawatts.
The issue for Utilities is that not all power is created equally. The excess power from home solar panels is produced during the mornings and late afternoon, when the grid has less demand. The customers then redeem those credits during the “on-peak” hours starting around 5 p.m. and pay significantly less at that point than other customers.
“When people can afford it, I recommend it. But it’s gotta be for their own use. The problem with rooftop solar isn’t their usage or their fundamental beliefs. It’s when they try to monetize it based off of other customers paying for it,” Utilities CEO Travas Deal said during the meeting.
Last fall, Utilities described the difference as providing “subsidized” power through net metering. The phrasing angered many solar customers, who often spent thousands of dollars to install the panels, and concerned City Councilmember and Utilities board member Nancy Henjum.
“It’s almost as if we’re attacking a belief system in an energy source and their choice to be part of it individually. And that’s super tricky,” Henjum said.
The non-solar customers in their focus group had no problem paying slightly more per month to support the broader benefits of solar power. Smith said those residents did not mind a $2 monthly cost to cover the reduced bills for net metering. Support quickly dropped off as the cost approached $5 per month.
The focus groups were split over how the new rates should be structured. In the survey Utilities ran in January, the leading result was market-based pricing for electricity used when the solar panels were not producing. Yet that result was supported by only 47% of respondents.
In the focus group, the favored new cost was a flat monthly fee to residents to connect their solar panels to the grid.
Several of the non-solar customers said they’d be interested in adding solar panels if there was an easier option.
House Bill 1007, which Polis signed Thursday, allows portable solar panels that can be directly plugged into a wall. The small panels are often known as balcony solar because they can be placed on smaller locations like balconies.
One of the groups that testified in support of the bill was Solar United Neighbors, a national nonprofit backing the residential use of solar panels. Tanner Simeon-Cox, the nonprofit’s Colorado organizer, said the panels could be a rapid solution for families looking to reduce their electricity bills in the long term.
“It’s really important that we talk about ease of entry and ease of use too. These are something that you get and quickly plug in. As long as it had the appropriate safety standards, you can use it without doing a lot to upgrade your home,” Simeon-Cox said.
Simeon-Cox said the new law may not lead to big changes for the net metering program. A single plug-in solar panel might be able to support the house’s demand but not provide enough excess power to be worth connecting to the grid. Anyone who did still want to join net metering might have to install other devices to manage the two-way connection.
Still, Colorado Springs Utilities has seen the net metering program soar in popularity over the past few years even with the higher upfront cost for solar panels. Around 1,000 of the participants have joined since the net metering fee was discussed in October.
Of the options Utilities has discussed, Fortenberry said she would prefer to see reduced credits rather than new fees. Any change to the credits would need to be small, though, because Fortenberry said the point of the program should be encouraging more solar panels.
“When you pay your own customers, the money stays here, with residents who spend it here. You’re not sending our money to Texas or another state to acquire power,” Fortenberry said.
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