Why one Ohio couple is suing their city over rooftop solar fees

What’s fair?

Policymakers have ​“oftentimes undervalued the benefits that rooftop solar can bring, and when you fail to really account for the benefits, you tend to wind up in the situation where people think it’s not fair,” Dutzik said.

Along those lines, Brian O’Connell, utilities director for Bowling Green, said via email that the city adopted its $4-per-kilowatt monthly charge for installed renewable capacity ​“to ensure rooftop solar customers were paying for the electric service they were receiving, and that the rooftop solar customers were not being subsidized by non-solar customers.”

The rationale resembles an argument promoted by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, since 2014. The Center for Media and Democracy has long criticized the group for coddling the fossil-fuel industry while working to suppress the vote and stifle dissent.

But Harper and Jansto were surprised when they learned Bowling Green adopted its ​“Rider E” charge roughly six months after work on their home’s renewable energy system wrapped up.

The utility had seemed friendly toward solar: Its website touts the significant share of its power that comes from renewables. Yet while the city aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it does have a long-term ​“take-or-pay” contract to get about half of its electricity from the Prairie State coal plant in Illinois.

Legal and constitutional claims in the couple’s Sept. 19 complaint include unlawful and irrational discrimination. The City of Bowling Green filed its answer on Oct. 14, denying liability and asserting governmental immunity and other defenses.

O’Connell said the $4/​kW rate for the charge resulted from a cost-of-service analysis by the municipal utility’s consultant, Sawvel & Associates. The city charges a general retail rate of about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour for any electricity it sells to customers. However, it credits rooftop solar owners just 7.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for whatever they supply to the grid.

O’Connell responded to Canary Media’s request for information about how the Rider E rate was calculated by sharing two spreadsheets. Each lists total savings or costs for the utility from a rooftop solar customer’s energy production, including what the utility saves by not paying other sources for capacity, transmission, and wholesale energy when customers feed excess power onto the grid.

But the documents don’t detail how the utility spends the solar surcharge. It’s unclear whether the rooftop solar fees are helping pay for the Prairie State coal plant: O’Connell’s response to Canary Media’s question merely noted the city still has to purchase energy from the electric market.

Harper and Jansto’s case will move through legal motions and pretrial fact-finding, called discovery, during the coming months. Meanwhile, advocates worry about the broader questions the case raises.

“We can look at it both ways with who’s supporting whom whenever rooftop solar is installed,” said Williams of Solar United Neighbors. In her view, ​“it’s hard to believe that it’s some sort of subsidized rate,” especially if solar customers get only partial credit for letting others use their excess energy.

Ultimately, Dutzik said, rate systems still should not discourage people from investing in renewable energy for their homes. Indeed, if high fees delay recovery of investments for too long, ​“fewer people are going to get solar,” Dutzik said. ​“And that is going to drive up costs for other consumers.”