By Tom McGhee | The Denver Post
More than 200 supporters of rooftop-generated solar energy demonstrated Wednesday against an Xcel Energy proposal they say would lower the amount of credit the company awards users for putting power on the grid.
“This would greatly reduce the economic viability” of rooftop solar arrays, said Rebecca Cantwell, spokeswoman for the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association.
Xcel has asked the Public Utilities Commission for permission to redefine the so-called net-metering credit — the price homeowners who have rooftop solar systems receive for sending kilowatt-hours onto the distribution system — as a subsidy.
The credit, which Xcel deducts from a homeowner’s bill, is 10.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
But an Xcel study found that rooftop solar’s benefit to the overall system is limited and worth only 4.6 cents a kilowatt-hour.
