WICHITA, Kansas — The state’s largest utility wants to charge customers with solar panels about $25 a month, even if their homes pull almost no electricity off the grid.
If courts and regulators reject that idea, power-provider Evergy’s backup proposal would charge all customers — not just those harvesting power on their roofs — a minimum of $35 a month just for plugging into its system.
For most customers, that charge wouldn’t matter, because it would count against their energy consumption. But some poorer households don’t use that much electricity, so they’d be paying more.
Evergy, the largest electric utility in Kansas, needed to make a plan because the Kansas Supreme Court shot down a previous solar rate. Meantime, the utility insists it needs to recover the cost of having electricity on demand for solar-equipped homes that don’t buy many kilowatts.
But solar advocates who challenged the original plan say the new one is the same thing in a different wrapper. They also argue it could stall the development of renewable energy gains at the customer level, just as tax breaks fade away and the cost of solar technology sits within reach of a much larger market.
Evergy’s leading plan would charge every customer a grid access fee of $3.00 per kilowatt of solar panels installed.
An average house with solar panels has between 7 and 10 kilowatts, which would add an extra $20 to $30 a month to a bill.
“They’re basically just trying to discourage anybody from investing in solar,” said Matt Graham, a solar user in Wichita. “And if you’re going to invest in solar, they certainly don’t want you to put a lot up.”
Graham has had solar panels on his house since about 2015. He said it’s unfair that Evergy would make him pay more money for reducing demand on the company’s system. He also said the constant rate changes make him want to disconnect from the grid entirely.
But Evergy argues people like Graham aren’t paying their fair share, that the connection fee would protect non-solar customers from subsidizing them. The larger the solar array, the less that customer typically pays to Evergy. That leads to small or non-existent monthly bills that don’t cover the fixed costs of connecting someone to the grid and keeping a steady supply of power on demand for those times — like at night — when even solar-powered homes need more juice.
“It’s only fair that within the solar customer class that the bigger solar panel customers pay more,” said Ahmad Faruqui, an economist with the Brattle Group who was hired by Evergy to provide testimony to state regulators.
The proposed plan comes after the Kansas Supreme Court declared the old plan, which had solar users pay a special demand charge in addition to the typical service and usage fees, discriminatory and against the law.
Evergy said the proposed grid connection fee doesn’t discriminate against solar users because it will be charged to every customer, even those without solar panels.
It’s just that customers without solar panels would be charged $0, since $3 per kilowatt installed times zero, is zero.
“As a practical matter,” Faruqui said, “it only collects revenue from customers who have a solar panel.”
But solar advocates say it has the same effect as the previous rate, and goes against the intent of the Kansas Supreme Court.
