BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – When Patrick Bergin installed 51 solar panels on the roof of his Millican Reserve home in 2021, he did what any careful investor would do: he ran the numbers and made sure it made financial sense before pulling the trigger.
Five years later, a billing change by Bryan Texas Utilities is threatening to upend everything he calculated. His system currently covers about 75 percent of his home’s annual power use. But under BTU’s new billing structure, Bergin says the math no longer works the way he planned.
For years, BTU solar customers operated under a net metering system. Under that structure, excess power generated during the day, power sent back to the grid when the sun is shining and panels are overproducing, was credited back to the customer at the full retail rate. In simple terms, whatever you put in, you got back at full value.
However, BTU has now switched to a net billing system. Under the new structure, customers are paid just over three cents per kilowatt hour for excess power they send to the grid. But when those same customers pull power from BTU at night, when the sun is down and panels aren’t producing, they’re charged the full retail rate of approximately twelve cents per kilowatt-hour.
That nine-cent-per-kilowatt-hour gap is at the heart of the dispute.
Bergin ran his own numbers using his actual bills from the past year to calculate what the change would mean for him personally.
“My power bill, based on those numbers, would increase up 85%,” he said. “And the entire rate change proposal, when it was given to City Council, was illustrated as about a 3.5% increase for everybody. So there was a stark difference between the impact on solar customers and the rest of the customers in general.”
BTU says the change wasn’t made arbitrarily; it was made in the interest of fairness to all of its customers.
Trey Reeves, BTU’s Communications and Marketing Specialist, says the old net metering structure was effectively forcing non-solar customers to subsidize solar customers’ bills.
“Our old structure of compensation was forcing the 71,000 to basically subsidize things that the solar customers were not paying for,” Reeves said. “Our solar customers were able to get out of paying for things like transmission lines or salaries of employees under the old structure. This is trying to find a way to rectify that and make it a little bit more equitable.”
Reeves also emphasized that BTU is a publicly owned utility that answers directly to its customers and the City of Bryan, not to outside shareholders.
“We have a responsibility to take care of all 72,000 of our customers,” Reeeves said. “We recognize there are 815 solar customers that we want to look out for as well. But we also have a responsibility to the other almost 71,000.”
For many customers, it wasn’t just the change itself that stung; it was how they found out about it.
Bergin says he received a letter from BTU in the first week of June explaining that the net metering system was being replaced. The letter was dated June 1st, the same day the new billing structure took effect. The envelope was postmarked June 3rd, two days after the change had already taken effect.
BTU acknowledged that the timing was a problem.
“That letter came as a surprise to a lot of people, and we recognize that, and we apologize for that inconvenience,” Reeves said. “We did send a follow-up communication that clarified that and restarted that 60-day clock to extend it into late August.”
Shortly after, BTU sent existing solar customers a new Distributed Generation Interconnection Agreement, requiring them to sign it by August 21st. Customers who do not sign will still be able to use their solar systems, but will lose the ability to sell excess power back to the grid.
On June 26th, dozens of BTU solar customers packed a Bryan City Council special meeting to make their voices heard. Speaker after speaker took to the podium, most of them not arguing against rate changes altogether, but asking that existing customers be protected under the terms they originally agreed to.
Bergin was among those who spoke and said the council’s response gave him hope.
“I was really pleased that the City Council took in what they heard. They felt like that was a genuine concern. And then they asked BTU to take a look at it. That was a very positive outcome, I thought,” Bergin said.
Council directed BTU to go back, review the concerns raised, and return with a revised proposal.
“I’m hoping that they honor the terms of the contract that I signed,” Bergin said. “If the vehicle they do that through is a grandfathering clause, that would be a great outcome.”
BTU has been tasked with presenting a revised proposal to its internal board and the Bryan City Council by July 14th.
Reeves says BTU is working quickly and taking every piece of feedback seriously.
“The council tasked us with coming to them with one option to consider and vote on in July. We are considering several different options right now. As soon as we have that information and we’re legally able to share it, we’ll share it with everybody,” he said. “We really value the opinions of every single one of our customers. We thank everybody who came out to voice their opinions, and we’re trying our best to take that into consideration with what we bring back to the council.”
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