CPS Energy is ramping up community solar, seeking proposals to spark struggling program

CPS Energy is looking to inject some energy in its struggling community solar program.

The San Antonio utility has issued a request for proposals seeking up to 50 megawatts of solar energy for the program - nearly five times as much power what’s now available.

“Community solar allows us to bring more renewable energy online while maintaining affordability and reliability for our customers,” said Jonathan Tijerina, CPS’ vice president of corporate development.

But the community solar program, created to provide alternatives for investing in solar, has yet to gain traction.

ENERGY NEWS:  CPS Energy seeks bids for solar power, boosting its capacity by 60%

The program offered two different initiatives. Those who weren’t able to put in their own solar systems - such as renters - instead could buy solar panels that would be installed either at a solar facility east of Adkins or on carport rooftops. Participating customers earn credits on their electric bills for the power generated by the panels.

The other initiative, Solar Host SA, allowed homeowners and commercial property owners to rent out space on their rooftops in exchange for credits on their monthly electric bills. Both initiatives are closed to new participants.

The community solar program started with 250 customers in 2016 and grew to 1,250 participants. But that’s a fraction of the utility’s more than 975,000 customers. On top of that, it’s created only 11 megawatts of power, 6 megawatts through customer-owned solar panels and 5 megawatts from roof rentals. That’s just 0.1% of CPS’ total capacity of more than 10,300 megawatts as of April 2025.

Seeking proposals for new initiatives

The municipally owned utility is seeking to spark another round of initiatives with the request for “scalable solutions that can be deployed in the near term.”

CPS said it intentionally left the call for proposals broad to encourage involvement from different entities, from local and small businesses to larger leaders in the solar industry.

It’s also seeking bids on a range of project approaches - complete community solar programs, innovative approaches leveraging new technology or program models, or solar installation-only solutions.

ENERGY NEWS: CPS Energy seeks proposals for adding 500 megawatts of battery storage

“This RFP reflects CPS Energy’s continued focus on expanding our solar portfolio in ways that are flexible, scalable, and responsive to our community’s needs,” Tijerina said. The utility is the largest solar energy purchaser in Texas.

Those chosen to participate will enter into power purchase agreements that will give the utility ownership of all generated power.

The deadline to submit a proposal online at cpsenergy.com/bids is March 19. It said it may end up choosing multiple bidders when it makes its selection later this year.

The community solar initiative is part of the utility’s five-year, $350 million Sustainable Tomorrow Energy Program that was approved in June 2022. The goal was to create a constellation of initiatives that would reduce energy demand by 410 megawatts, enough to power 82,000 homes. CPS calculates that 1 megawatt can power about 200 homes during peak demand.

As of November, STEP had cut energy demand by 280 megawatts, or 68% of its goal.

Community solar ‘a challenge’

Certain elements of the STEP program - such as the expansion of its weatherization program - have been able to evolve with time. The utility celebrated the weatherization of 30,000 homes in 2023. In October, the utility leveraged that success and started weatherizing apartments, with 856 serviced in the pilot program and 5,000 more units waiting for service in the pipeline as of last fall.

READ MORE:  CPS expands its energy-savings program to include apartment residents

Community solar hasn’t shared the same natural growth.

Tijerina said in November that it’s been “a challenge” to get the community solar program running, in part because the utility wanted to “eliminate all of that possible risk that customers have to deal with when wanting to pursue solar options” while offering a fair price point.

“We’re challenging ourselves here internally to really think of a product offering that in theory would eliminate the majority of those barriers,” Tijerina added.

One of the initiatives that CPS was looking at in November was using a subscription model, in which customers would make monthly payments for solar power in return for earning credits on their electric bills for the power generated.

Both Austin Energy and the Kerrville Public Utility Board have subscription-based community solar programs.

Austin Energy program

Austin Energy launched its community solar program in 2018.

Solar program manager Tim Harvey said the program has about 4.3 megawatts of solar at three different locations. It’s serving more than 400 customers, with half of the slots are dedicated to low-income customers.

SA INC.: Get the week’s top local business stories in your inbox 

Market-rate customers pay a penny and a half premium over the power supply adjustment fee. The power supply adjustment fee is on every customer’s bill and is based on kilowatt hours of consumption. An incentive program covers that cost for the utility’s low-income customers. In exchange, customers earn credits on their electric bills.

“We were careful to select what would be easiest for our customers, so we went with a subscription model,” Harvey said.

Last year, the utility created a mechanism to enhance its community solar projects by allowing commercial building operators, even those without commercial electric accounts, to take advantage of underutilized space and participate in the program.

“Now those building owners are able to lease out their roof space for a profit with no upfront investment,” Harvey said. “Third-party developers come in and lease that roof space from them and develop a solar project to sell that energy to Austin Energy.”

Plans call for the premiums collected through the utility’s community solar program to be reinvested into residential batteries to improve resiliency in low-income communities.

ENERGY NEWS: This project promises power grid reliability for Texas. Hill Country residents aren’t happy.

The first megawatt of that program was brought online in November. Another 13.5 megawatts of the program is in the permitting and developing phase, with 6 megawatts behind that looking for interconnection approval. Altogether, that’s nearly five times the energy generation of the initial phase of the commercial solar program.

That growth is why Austin Energy considers its community solar program as “very successful” even though it’s still not a significant part of its energy capacity, which was more than 4,600 megawatts as of 2024, the most recent data available.

In addition, the community solar program isn’t the only way that Austin Energy’s customers can invest in renewable energy. They also can invest in wind through a program that’s drawn thousands of customers.

Customers participating in the utility’s Green Choice Program pay three-quarters of a penny as a premium to help pay for both wind and solar power, although wind energy is currently the primary component. More than 20,000 customers are participating in it, about 4% of the utility’s customer base of more than 500,000.

“We know that works,” Harvey said of the utility’s Green Choice Program.

Kerrville utility’s program

Like Austin Energy, the Kerrville Public Utility Board has offered its community solar program since 2018. It even was recognized by the Department of Energy for its participation in the Solar In Your Community Challenge in 2019.

ENERGY NEWS: Kerrville’s first power plant’s price tag could spike $28M due to tariffs

The utility currently has four sites, hosted by area nonprofits. The most recent system, at Schreiner University, came online in 2019.

All of the energy produced by the sites goes to the utility, which allocates the output as a bill credit to the hosting nonprofits and to low- to moderate-income households in the community. For households, it currently equates to about $100 in savings per year, the utility said.

Residents have to qualify for the program, and many are automatically signed up after moving into income-qualified apartments.

The four community solar sites account for about 2% of the utility’s energy output for the year. There are 400 to 500 customers taking part in the program; the utility has about 24,000 customers.

“We have more solar available than we have (low- to moderate-income) customers to subscribe to it,” said Allison Bueché, the utility’s director of customer and community relations.

This article originally published at CPS Energy is ramping up community solar, seeking proposals to spark struggling program.