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Colorado Springs Utilities would give solar net metering customers two options to choose from as the utility looks to increase electric rates for residents who have a home solar panel.
The net metering program, which more than 11,000 homes in the city participate in, allows residents with solar panels to connect them to the city’s grid. Those residents receive credits for the excess power they produce during the day and send to the city’s power grid, which helps them cover the cost of the power they use at other times of the day.
Customers who join the program after April 1, 2027, would have two choices for how they are billed under a proposal discussed this week by the Utilities Board. They could either switch to Energy Wise rates and pay a monthly grid access fee to connect their solar panels to the city grid, or pay a “demand charge” based on the most power they use in a 15-minute section of the peak evening hours each month.
Utilities leaders have tried to adjust the program for years because of how little solar customers pay during the peak hours of electricity demand, a cost they say is passed along to other customers. Both options for the proposed changes are expected to increase net metering customers’ electric bills by about $30 a month.
Current net metering customers would be grandfathered into the program until 2032, at which point they’d have to pick one of the two new options.
“It felt like it was a reasonable plan that balances what we’re hearing from customers, that they need more time to manage the investment in the panels they put in place,” Utilities Financial Officer Tristan Gearhart said.
The peak demand charge was the only option provided last year when Utilities first proposed an overhaul of the net metering program. Solar customers widely opposed the change, arguing that it would be a punishing increase in the bills of people trying to help the city’s power system. The Colorado Springs City Council rejected the proposal in October.
Several members of the Utilities Board criticized how complicated the new proposal was to explain. Brandy Williams called it “brain damage” to understand how Utilities arrived at the rates and how it would play out for an individual bill.
David Leinweber, a net metering customer who serves on the board, voiced his concerns about basing costs on a 15-minute peak instead of multiple peaks.
“I still have a problem with having a single event during a month control your rate for that month,” Leinweber said.
Several net metering customers told The Gazette that the latest proposal is an improvement from the city’s first attempt at changing net metering, but the large rate increase still undercuts why customers invest in home solar panels.
Carolyn Dickerson added solar panels to her house in 2023, in part because the savings on her electric bill would pay for the cost of the panels in about 20 years, she said.
But under the proposal, she would go from saving $500 a year in utility costs to saving less than $200.
“They’re making it too expensive and they don’t want the energy from us,” Dickerson said.
The Utilities Board — composed of City Council members — did not vote on the proposal or modify the proposed rate case. The City Council is expected to have a hearing on the proposal in August before holding a final vote in September.
The utility has conducted focus groups and surveys since the council rejected the previous proposal last fall, including gathering comments from more than 150 residents about the two-option plan. Both options had some support, but many customers did not understand how much each option would affect their bills, Utilities Customer Insight Supervisor Leslie Smith said.
“It became very clear with all three of the outreach efforts my team has done that we’re still sitting in resistance, so we have some work to do,” Smith said.
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