Denton Poised to Put the Brakes on Rooftop Solar

October 17, 2024

Denton Poised to Put the Brakes on Rooftop Solar

By Kamil Cook

Denton Municipal Electric (DME) is attempting a drastic rollback of the rooftop solar compensation rate, which will likely result in fewer residents of this north Texas city opting to go solar.

Denton is not the first, only the latest, community where a utility has proposed a rate that is so unfair that it makes it difficult to recoup an investment in rooftop solar.

It's troubling because DME currently has the gold standard compensation policy for rooftop solar. The utility uses net metering, meaning that every kilowatt hour of electricity is valued exactly the same - whether bought by the residential homeowner from the grid or sent to the grid from the residential homeowner. This is fair to the owner of the solar system and to the utility, as well as the utility's other customers. Because of the time and location of rooftop solar production, it provides a net benefit for everyone on the grid, including those without rooftop solar, making solar one of our best options to power Texas homes with energy that is clean, cheap and reliable .

But this could all change on Oct. 22, when the Denton City Council is scheduled to vote on a DME proposal to repeal net metering and replace it with a much lower solar compensation rate. If this passes, rooftop solar will take much longer to pay off, making it much less accessible-or even out of reach-for the people of Denton. It will also be a significant blow to the city's clean energy and climate goals.

Rooftop solar offers a plethora of benefits not just to its owner but to the entire grid in which it's situated. It helps relieve transmission line congestion, especially during the year's hottest days, reducing the need for expensive distribution and transmission upgrades. Rooftop solar installations also help reduce the utility's transmission fees to ERCOT. Local solar also suppresses local energy prices and reduces reliance on dirty fossil fuels (it was a methane gas failure that took down the grid during Winter Storm Uri). Lastly, greater rooftop solar also makes our air cleaner by reducing the need to burn coal and natural gas that fills the air with fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides (which contribute to ground-level ozone formation) and other pollutants.

In short, solar has many upsides. Utilities like DME should encourage rooftop solar adoption, but DME is doing the opposite with its proposal.

DME justifies its proposal based on a flawed analysis of rooftop solar's value.

Many utilities in Texas do not understand the full value that rooftop solar brings to the grid, even as ERCOT faces more reliability and resiliency issues than ever before. However, studies conducted by different organizations, like the one recently released by the Texas Solar Energy Society, show that rooftop solar's value to the grid averages 19 cents per kilowatt-hour, higher than residential consumption rates.In other words, DME is getting a good deal with net metering.

Rolling back net metering would be a shortsighted decision, as our grid is facing a myriad of challenges from unpredictable weather, transmission line congestion, and a worsening climate crisis. We need all the clean local generation we can get-not more fossil fuel-burning gas plants.

If you're in Denton, attend the city council meeting next Tuesday, October 22nd, at 6:30 p.m., andtell your council member to keep net metering!

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