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Rate increases for customers in Colorado Springs Utilities’ net metering solar program have moved closer to taking effect next year.
The Colorado Springs City Council voted 6-2 to advance the proposed rate changes at Tuesday’s council meeting, after several hours of a public hearing where residents and solar providers voiced their concerns.
The official vote on the net metering changes is scheduled to take place during the Sept. 22 council meeting.
The net metering program covers residents who have connected home solar panels to the city’s electricity grid. Customers receive credits for the excess power they generate and provide to the city system during the day and often use those credits to reduce their bills at other times.
Tuesday was Colorado Springs Utilities’ second attempt to overhaul and increase the rates for the net metering program. A previous proposal last fall was pulled out of a larger rate case by the City Council, which also serves as the Utilities board, after a similar show of opposition from solar customers.
Utilities Chief Financial Officer Tristan Gearhart said the core issue was that net metering customers still relied on the broader system for power during the peak evening hours but did not pay as much because of their credits. The difference amounted to around $4.5 million that the utility had to generate from other customers.
“As long as it credits the daytime use in the evening hours, it will never catch up, no matter where you set these rates at,” Gearhart said.
Utilities staff proposed two options for increases for customers. One option is to pay an extra $1 per day in a connection charge and otherwise switch to the Energy Wise rates used by other utility customers. The other path is to have rates set based on the maximum 15-minute demand for power they used during the previous month.
Both options are estimated to increase the average monthly bill by around $38 per month, which nearly doubles the current average bill through net metering.
The new rates are proposed to take effect on April 1, 2027. Existing net metering customers would be grandfathered in with the current rates through April 2032 as long as they don’t make any changes to their current system.
“There are many other options that you’ve heard today, and it would be well within your requirement to investigate all those options, not just these pretty terrible options,” resident Rick Allen said.
Councilmember David Leinweber said the approach treated all solar customers the same, whether they were nearly self-sufficient with solar panels or had a small system. Leinweber worried that the bill increases would cause current solar customers to disconnect from net metering or abandon their solar panels entirely.
“I think we’re getting to a place where I don’t think there is enough of a benefit that we’re offsetting that, particularly for someone who can’t afford a large-scale solar system,” Leinweber said.
The proposal also raised concerns from several solar panel companies. The end of the federal tax credit for home solar panels in December 2025 already cut the demand for new solar panels by at least half, according to multiple companies.
Alexander Antipov, the owner of Colorado Solar Innovations, said that he had largely switched from working with residents to providing solar to businesses and nonprofits because of the challenges.
“Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on behalf of solar users and solar builders. It doesn’t work,” Antipov said.
One solution suggested by Antipov and several other residents was for Utilities to create a program that supported small battery storage. Battery storage would allow solar customers to use their banked power during the hours when their panels aren’t active.
The batteries cost thousands of additional dollars to install, which makes them an optional luxury when solar panels already cost around $30,000. Gearhart said that of the roughly 11,000 homes in the net metering program, fewer than 400 had battery storage.
Gearhart agreed with those concerns, saying Utilities staff are actively working to design a rebate program or other incentives to make it easier to install batteries. However, he said that program could not be supported until net metering rates went up and the ‘hole’ caused by their lower bills had been addressed.
“Solar batteries are truly a game-changer as a utility company,” Gearhart said. “It’s just hard to be able to get the math to calculate out for those programs.”
Councilmember Nancy Henjum proposed that the changes should not take effect until after Utilities had proposed a program to support battery storage at customers’ homes. That proposal was rejected 5-3, with Kimberly Gold and Leinweber supporting Henjum’s idea.
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