House Energy & Environment [Mar 25, 2026 - Upon Adjournment]

Energy and environment will come to order. Ms. Falco, please call the roll.

Presente.

Excuse.

Jackson.

Joseph.

Grudenell.

Saw.

Smith.

Luke.

Velasco.

And Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and esteemed committee members. I'm happy to introduce House Bill 1225 alongside my good colleague, Representative Wolford. HB 26-1225 is designed to accelerate community solar development before federal tax credits expire at the end of 2029. Community solar is a form of distributed generation that expands access to clean energy for renters and households that cannot install rooftop solar. Benefits low income rate payers through bill savings and provides energy choice to consumers. This bill ensures that Colorado can build as many viable community solar projects as possible before federal incentives disappear at the end of 2029. It's important to note that this bill does not expand the community solar program, and it does not require utilities to accept more than 300 megawatts of community solar power that the legislature mandated in 2024. Community Solar has been in existence in Colorado for 15 years, and it has been providing energy choice and rate payer assistance to thousands of subscribers since then. One great example is Jack's Solar in my county. In 2024, the General Assembly required investor-owned public utilities. Those are only Excel and Black Hills. to purchase power from additional community solar facilities when it passed SB 24-207. HB 2025 refines existing policy and will protect subscriber savings for low-income consumers once amended, incorporate a bill credit adjustment mechanism so community solar subscribers maintain meaningful savings even as utility rates increase. ensure the program delivers the economic benefit it promises, and improve interconnection efficiency by allowing developers to contract with qualified third parties to complete interconnection studies and upgrades You might be asking why is this bill needed now There are two major changes in 2025 that have created this urgency First, the federal tax credits expire at the end of 2029. Under the Federal Reconciliation Bill, H.R.1, new solar facilities must be operational by the end of 2029 to qualify for federal credits, tax credits. These credits can save developers 30 to 50% for each project. If projects miss deadline, this deadline, cost for community solar developers will increase significantly and consequently ratepayer savings will decrease, disproportionately affecting low-income consumers. Some projects may become financial unviable, hence consumers will have less choice of where their electric power comes from. The second reason is related to the PU decision on bill credits. In 2025, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission ruled that current law does not require an adjustment mechanism for community solar bill credits. As a result, subscriber credits will remain the same in 2046 as they were in 2026. As utility rates increase over time, the relative value of community solar savings erodes each year. Unfortunately, low-income subscribers will be disproportionately impacted. HB 26-2025 corrects this issue by requiring a credit adjustment mechanism so subscriber savings are not diluted over time. Another important aspect of the bill is to allow bonding instead of upfront cash. This will allow developers to use qualified surety bonds in place of large upfront cash deposits for interconnection upgrade costs, which will preserve capital for construction and improves project feasibility. It does not reduce financial security for the utility. To summarize, this bill reduces delays for community solar develops, increases efficiency, and helps projects meet the 2029 federal deadline. I urge you to vote yes on HB 1226, and I will now turn it over to my co-prime. Representative Wilford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am delighted to be working with Representative Smith to bring House Bill 1225 forward for your consideration. committee when you pair the expiration of federal investment tax credits with the recognition that excel needs as much energy as possible right now so much so that they are proposing to keep coal plants open this bill is an elegant solution to adding capacity and ensuring that community solar subscribers can continue to save on money or to save money on their energy bills as you heard the legislature approved 300 megawatts of community solar to be built in 2024, and 300 megawatts has the potential to serve upwards of 85,000 customers. That's 85,000 potential subscribers choosing the energy that powers their home. Community solar facilities take shorter amounts of time to build than wind farms utility scales solar facilities and gas plants However for a major bottleneck and choke point to getting them built right now is the excessive amount of time that they are having to wait I'm sorry, excessive wait times required by Excel before the facility can interconnect with the grid. And I want to spend just a few minutes talking specifically about interconnection. Interconnection to the grid requires the utility to study interconnection impacts and then to make any necessary upgrades to accommodate the community solar facility. Developers pay for the studies and then also for the necessary upgrades. And it often takes a year to get the required studies completed and then between a year or two years to get the necessary upgrades done. So it means there's three years before the community solar facility can even start construction. Now, remember, we have a December of 2029 deadline to make community solar facilities operational. Without action, and if these interconnection delays remain, any project that hasn't begun the study process by the end of the year will be at risk of not getting built. So the time really is of the essence, and the time for solutions is now. Interconnection delays are not a new problem, and developers have been able to eventually build products despite Excel's bottlenecks in the past. However, again, the December 2029 deadline requires us to make an adjustment in policy so that we can get in as much community solar online by the end of the decade to provide energy choice, utility bills saving and supply growing demand for electricity as possible. Excel often uses subcontractors to complete interconnection studies and upgrades, and the vast majority of interconnection upgrade subcontractors are IBEW-affiliated companies. Work that is stuck behind in the Excel bottleneck is not being done by those companies. More interconnection upgrades at a quicker pace will result in more work for those subcontractors, which is exactly what we want. Excel, to this point, has not proposed solutions to the interconnection bottleneck, and you'll hear more about this issue in the testimony phase. We've worked really hard to address stakeholder concerns, receive feedback, and identify a path forward. But unfortunately, we're unable to move Excel, and they are opposing the solutions outlined in this bill. and again have just not brought forward any other workable proposal. As a result of the other stakeholding that we have done, we are planning on offering six amendments to be responsive, and I'll ask Ms. Falco if you can please release amendments 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 now to the committee. That will give everybody an opportunity to take a look. But briefly, to give you a quick highlight of the amendments that we're going to be bringing, We have Amendment 4. This amendment will allow community solar subscriber organizations to give income-qualified customers a stable fixed bill credit that will also be indexed to increase annually with inflation based on the Denver Area Energy CPI. So we're ensuring that low-income customers, or subscribers, I'm sorry, don't lose value over time. This will also drop the fiscal note to roughly as opposed to the that it is currently Amendment 5 is cleanup language from Senate Bill 24 This is the inclusive community solar bill. And the amendment was suggested to us by Western resource advocates to make sure that solar plus battery facilities can clearly fit within the definition of dispatchable distributed resources that was put forth in that previous bill in 2024. Amendment 6 came at the suggestion of the Colorado Rural Electric Association. We think it's pretty clear that the bill only applies to investor-owned utilities, but this amendment is putting on some belts and suspenders so that so that CREA has further assurances that it doesn't apply to them. Amendment 7 takes out a section of the bill that mentioned that a developer could appeal an adverse interconnection decision to the PUC. After looking into this further, we determined that this section was unnecessary and duplicative of an existing process. There's already an appeals process for interconnection disputes in the PUC rules, and we don't need to restate that, the ability for people to use that process in this bill. So we're just going to take it out and clear it up. And then finally, Amendment 8, we drafted this amendment after conversations with Black Hills Energy. The third-party interconnection provision would not apply to them because they currently do all of their interconnection studies and upgrades using in-house labor. We have experts here to provide testimony and answer technical questions and do ask for your aye vote today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm happy to be referred to as representative here in this particular committee, so I appreciate that. But thank you very much, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Mike Foote and I do policy and regulatory work for SunShare, which is a Denver-based community solar and distributed generation company in business since 2011. The community solar facilities Sunshare operates have saved ratepayers a cumulative $4 million in utility bills as of the end of last year. Sunshare is not the biggest Colorado-based distributed generation developer, but I wanted to give you an idea of what the current interconnection delays look like for us. It's important to remember there are two processes here. First are the interconnection studies that must occur. The studies tell the utility and the developer what kind of interconnection upgrades are necessary before the facility can interconnect. The developer pays for the studies and then pays for the interconnection upgrades that are necessary. Under the current system with Excel, the interconnection studies can take between one and two years. Connection upgrades themselves can take between one and two years, if you're lucky. The vast majority of that time is not actually doing the work, but waiting in line to do the work. It's kind of like Disneyland, but there's no wait-in-line music or mascots to look at. Just with SunShare, we have 18 projects in Excel territory currently waiting for interconnection studies to be completed. Fifteen of those projects are in Weld County, two are in Adams, and one is in Arapaho. Of those 18 projects, 14 of those projects were awarded in 2023, and the studies have not even started. This average time we've been waiting for these studies to start is 392 days and counting. One is 566 days and counting. Collectively, this represents over 60 megawatts worth of capacity, just waiting to get started, enough to power over 12,000 homes. That's 60 megawatts of power that Excel desperately needs at this point, and thousands of ratepayers, particularly low-income ratepayers, that can save money on their utility bills. It's tax revenue for local governments and landowners benefiting from long-term leases. And as Representative Smith mentioned in our opening comments, we've got a deadline now. We've got to flip the switch to these things and the new projects that are already mandated by Senate Bill 24-207. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that bill. by the end of this decade. Two to four year delays is not going to cut it anymore. It's not going to work. Unfortunately, Excel does not propose any solutions to this issue. Instead, the bill's sponsors have taken concepts that are working in other states and brought them to Colorado. They involve the developer contracting directly with the companies that already do interconnection study and upgrade work for Excel. We know they have the experience and expertise to do it, but instead of waiting for Excel to get around to it, those same subcontractors can do the work now and on top of that getting to the studies and upgrades now means more work for those same contractors as it turns out the vast majority of subcontractors that have decades of experience doing interconnection upgrade work for excel are ibew affiliated subcontractors so more work for them more jobs more power for the grid more savings for ratepayers all those things can happen if we act now so we ask you to support the bill and Thank you for the extra 20 seconds, Mr. Chair.

My name is Alex Shobe. I'm the Chief Operating Officer of Cloudbreak Energy Partners. We're a solar and storage developer here in the Front Range. We have more than 100 megawatts of community solar gardens in operation, construction, or development here in Colorado. I'm here to speak in favor of HB 1225 because this bill will help us serve thousands of income-qualified customers with clean, affordable electricity through efficient development of the inclusive community solar gardens. The community solar bill credit has been increasingly volatile in recent years. From 2024 to 2025, the bill credit for residential households dropped 10.06%, and then from 2025 to 2026, it increased by 18.84%. And in fact, since 2021, four out of five years, the residential bill credit has changed by more than 10% year over year. This volatility makes community solar gardens much more difficult and expensive for developers to finance due to the revenue uncertainty which puts them at risk of not being built But the revenue volatility is even more acute of an issue for the customers subscribing to a community solar garden a majority of whom are income qualified because they cannot depend on electric savings year to year This bill will provide a level of relief for income qualified households through predictability and certainty at no additional cost to rate payers. On that point, I would like to correct a piece of information that I think is a common misconception, which is that this bill will come at a cost to rate payers. I've looked at the numbers on this bill, and I believe that this bill will actually save rate payers money if community solar garden bill credit rates outpace inflation, which they have done by more than 1.5% annually over the last five years. if this trend is to continue this bill is a zero cost solution to speed up solar deployment and provide electric bill certainty for income qualified customers and in my mind it is a no brainer by tweaking the community solar program to provide certainty to the bill credit reduce unnecessary capital costs by allowing surety bonds for interconnection and allowing developers to pay to move interconnection forward and build the interconnection upgrades, we are encouraging rapid resource deployment to lower energy bills across the board. Energy independence and affordability are critical issues of our current moment, and this bill strengthens both. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Honorable members of the Energy and Environment Committee, good afternoon. For those of you that know me, I only work on topics that I'm passionate about. And I am passionate for the same reasons this body debates so vigorously here at the Capitol, which is both affordability and attainability for all Coloradans. I support energy choice, not mandates, not moratoriums. So when farmers and ranchers asked me to open up Weld County's code to solar of all sizes, I did so in the spirit of choice and respect for private property rights. What I found was nothing short of transformative. Solar panels don't just generate energy. They are helping preserve the rural landscape of Colorado and of America. At first, solar panels were built on nonproductive land, intending to generate a reliable passive income for farmers and ranchers from 20 to 30 years. You can't drill an oil and gas wheel everywhere, nor can you build a nuclear plant anywhere, but solar is both affordable and attainable for small developers and agricultural families. Just as important, these projects generate property tax revenue that directly supports rural communities, funding local school districts, local hospitals, fire protection services, and they are often under increasing strain. If you don't already know, rural Colorado, like much of rural America, is struggling. Fewer young people are entering agriculture due to the risk and volatility of both domestic and global markets, along with rapidly rising land and water costs. But the steady income generated by solar is allowing both current and future generations to innovate and take risks. And while the county solar hasn replaced productive farmland it has come alongside it and accelerated it in amazing ways In fact we are now seeing crops slated to be grown under solar panels Livestock including cow operations will be raised under them Farmers are cultivating pumpkins, wheat, native grasses for forage, and soil stabilization. As it turns out, even sun-loving plants can perform better with partial shade. At Jack's Solar Garden, for example, they are growing Mediterranean broadleaf plants. The microclimate underneath these panels is just enough to extend the growing season beyond early frost while retaining moisture in the soil. This makes it possible to grow high-value plants, herbs, and especially crops used in cosmetics. The shade from panels also improves working conditions for agriculture laborers, while new technologies like drone-assisted tractors are helping manage soil nutrients and control invasive weeds. In a state like Colorado, where water is scarce, using less of it while extending the growing season, even by a month, on either side is a game changer. Agrivoltaics won't fit everywhere, but similar benefits are being observed in livestock. Incorporating solar into feedlots and hog operations is something Temple Grand and herself has advocated. Solar is not only attainable for people in my former district, it also strengthens the broader energy system. Everyone benefits from a stronger grid. In closing, when electricity is generated closer to where it's consumed, the grid becomes more efficient and less expensive. As this committee understands, you can't move electronics long distances without losses due to resistance. And community solar helps us. This is why rural projects can be less costly. In closing, I do urge you to vote yes on HB 26-12-25 and move it to the broader discussion for the floor.

the opportunity to testify here today. My name is James McGarry, and I am here representing the Coalition for Community Solar Access, or CCSA. CCSA is a national trade association representing more than 100 community solar companies, businesses, nonprofits, all working to expand customer choice and access to solar for households and businesses. I'm testifying in support of HB 1225 because community solar and other dispatchable distributed energy resources are vital to Colorado's energy future. Colorado is facing an unprecedented convergence of affordability, pressures, reliability challenges, and accelerating decarbonization demands. Electric rates are rising faster than inflation. Peak demand is growing due to electrification and new data centers. Extreme weather is increasing grid operational risks, and the state must rapidly expand its grid infrastructure at a pace not seen in decades. In this context, community solar and other dispatchable distributed energy resources are uniquely suited to the moment. Under the right policy framework, these resources can be built quickly, interconnect without major transmission upgrades, and be locally dispatched to meet local reliability needs. Community solar also provides direct bill savings for low and moderate income customers, with state law requiring that 51% of project capacity be reserved for low-income households. HB 1225 supports these positive outcomes in two key ways. First, it makes needed changes to the fixed bill credit mechanism, originally established under HB 23 1137 to ensure that it is a viable option for developers and subscribers We understand that parties are actively working toward a consensus adjustment mechanism that better reflects both historic and anticipated rate growth and we support those efforts and would welcome an amendment with broad stakeholder support that results in a materially improved and commercially workable fixed bill credit structure Second, the bill improves interconnection processes to reduce delays in cost, and by allowing the use of surety bonds and letters of credit, tools that are commonly used by utilities across the country that could unlock additional investment here in Colorado. These provisions address bottlenecks that have emerged in the utility interconnection study process, which, left unaddressed, could inadvertently stymie Colorado's efforts to deploy clean energy at scale. I also want to acknowledge and commend Public Service and Black Hills Energy for their ongoing efforts to process a high volume of applications under challenging and rapidly evolving conditions. This bill is intended to support those efforts by bringing additional resources and best practices to bear and to help process applications more quickly. So in summary, CCSA supports HB 1225 and potential consensus amendments and urge a yes vote because it strengthens community solar and dispatchable energy resources and enables a more robust marketplace here in Colorado. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chair. This is for Senator Foote. Thanks for being here today. I've heard it being said that this will increase our customer bills. Can you explain to me if that is true or not? And if it's not, could you explain how it works?

Thank you, Representative. We've heard that, too. We disagree with that. And I'll give you a couple of answers to that question. First, it comes back to the structure of the bill credit itself. House Bill 231137, which was just mentioned in testimony, created a fixed bill credit. The idea behind that was that it would be predictable bill credit as opposed to the existing variable bill credit, which is up and down. As it turns out, because of PUC interpretation of that bill, they have determined that the fixed bill credit would not ever adjust. And so, therefore, the value of the fixed bill credit, according to the PUC, will be the same in 2046 as it is in 2026. I give you that background because what we have now that exists and all the developers have chosen is the variable bill credit. Now, the variable bill credit is volatile. For the last three years, it's gone up 15 percent, gone down 20 percent, gone up 18 percent. But it goes up and down. But the trend line is for it to go up, just like utility rates. the fixed bill credit the fix that we've been proposing in this bill is that it will also increase but at a predictable rate but end up in the same spot that the variable bill credit would anyway over the next couple of years so um i can't describe it as well in words so i apologize but i'll just kind of do a hand motion like with with the variable bill credit it kind of goes like this right but it ends up up here the fixed bill credit as proposed in the amendment here would go up but in a steady predictable rate but end up in the same spot and so therefore we don't think that it's going to cause any kind of increase other than what would already increase to account for the utility bills that are already going to increase you all probably know that excel has It's pending a 9% utility rate increase in front of the PUC right now. They're asking for that. They've indicated over the next, I think, 10 to 15 years, they expect bill rates to go up an average of 3% per year. So bill rates are going to go up, unfortunately, and bill credits will end up accounting for that. But the bill credits in this bill, the fixed bill credits, would go up and end up in the same spot as the variable bill credits, just in a more predictable way. So I hope that I was able to turn that word salad into something that was understandable, but that's why we think that it's not going to be any kind of an increase. And the other thing that I'll mention is that using the methodology that we think that Excel has used to make this claim of a huge increase in rates, even using that methodology, when you divide it by the number of years that they use as well as the number of customers in there that they have, you're looking at, again, if you accept their methodology, you're looking at about a dime per month that bills would go up per customer averaging. But I want to make clear, we don't accept that methodology. We don't think it's correct. But even if it were, that's what you'd be looking at. All right.

Representative Graff. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

and then I'm hearing from this panel that they're years. That seems like not a small disparity. How is Excel citing that they're doing these needed studies in 20 days and 30 days, and then the panel is saying that they're taking years? Can you help me with that disconnect?

I'll punt that cognitive dissonance over to Senator Foote. Senator Foote.

Representative DeGraff? So just following up on that, do you find that there, I mean, you cited a lot of studies. Do you know in advance what studies that you're going to be doing or needing to do, or is it sometimes, well, we need you to do A, and then when A is done, well, we need you to do now B and C, and then maybe we, is it a consistent path or are you finding that this is not as straightforward as you would like?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative, it can be both. Typically, well, I think almost always, the developer will meet with the utility before the studies process and go through like a scoping discussion. And in the scoping discussion the utility representative will sometimes say this looks like these following studies will be needed and so we should just expect that Other times, it just happens that the system impact study will be done, and then the utility comes back and says, well, this is a little unexpected. We need to have different types of studies here. We need to do that. Or this needs to go to the back of the line for this various reasons. And so sometimes the developer, I think, has an okay idea of what to expect that's always subject to change. Other times they just don't know.

Senator Fudd.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize if I'm getting all the, maybe I shouldn't apologize if I'm getting all the questions, but thank you at any rate for the questions, members of the committee. And Representative, thank you for that question. It's a very, very good question. Of course, safety is the number one priority here. And in the bill, you may recall there is language that for a third-party study process, the utility actually is in charge of coming up with the process that would be acceptable to the utility. And so if this bill were to pass, it's currently written, the utility would have to go back and come up with a process that they think would work for these third parties to come in and subcontract with existing subcontractors. subcontractors. In addition, all labor and safety protocols would need to be followed as is currently followed by those subcontractors. So in short, I think as this bill has written, nothing would change along those lines. The only thing that would change would be that developers could actually just subcontract with these subcontractors and ask them to do what they're already doing. So if you have subcontractor A that does interconnection upgrade work and they follow the highest standards and they're safe and they do everything correctly, that's the same thing they'll be doing. It's just that the developer will be contracting with them instead of Excel. So it'll be status quo along those lines. And we don't think that safety would be compromised. And if we did, we would certainly try to come up with some language in the bill that would make sure that it is not.

So, first of all, to be clear, the intent here, as far as I understand it, from the sponsors and the coalition is not to have community solar jump a line over utility-scale solar or rooftop or any other interconnection. And I think that intent is pretty clear. But if there were language to spell that out, then I think that would be something the sponsors, as far as I know, would consider. but the point here is not to pick a winner and loser as far as community solar gets interconnection before anybody else so just to be clear about that and secondly there's a couple other processes that are ongoing. I know that the PUC has worked with improving interconnection for rooftop solar in particular and that's been something that has been engaged and there have been rules and performance and incentive mechanisms implemented the PUC in order to do that. To the extent that that's been successful, I couldn't say, but I know that the PUC has dealt with that aspect. There may be a rulemaking coming down sometime in the near future that could be dealing with other aspects of interconnection at the PUC, at least that's my understanding. So I think it's a discussion for other sectors, but the reason why this bill was brought is because the discussions that have occurred and uh not only between the private parties and and excel but also at the puc they just have not gone anywhere with community solar they have been it's just been a brick wall um i can't speak for utility scale solar i can't speak for rooftop but i can speak for community solar and that's just been a difficult issue. If there were other ideas on the table, I think the sponsors have indicated they would be happy to consider those, but so far Excel in particular has not come forth with any ideas to try to address this problem. So looping back to your, I think your original intender, your question, Mr. Chair, is that there is, we don't think this bill would create any kind of leapfrog effect between the different types of solar or other customers that want to interconnect, but to the extent that you or other legislators may think that that could be an unintended consequence, I'm pretty sure the sponsors would be interested in hearing your views on that and would be interested in entertaining some kind of language to make sure that that does not occur. Okay, thank you very much. And my very last question, and I'm just into this kind of stuff, you know, I've done I think three community solar bills since I've been here. And my question is, why do you think there's resistance just kind of your expert opinion, anybody, maybe you, sir, since you're out there working in the field, what is the resistance from utilities to kind of speed this process up, given that we heard

to solve this problem. I couldn't necessarily say why it has become a problem. I think Senator Foote and myself both are just acknowledging that this is the reality of the kind of interconnection landscape for community solar projects today. But it's a great question and I I think I share the curiosity. Okay.

Yeah, I can take that. I think there's a lot of similarities in that they're both what we call distributed generation, so both hooked up to the distributed network, sort of like the neighborhood three-phase lines. In the case of utility-scale solar, obviously that's directly connected to the much higher voltage transmission lines. That's one large similarity. I think a big difference in that front is that typically when you have rooftop solar, that will be behind the meter solar as compared to community solar being front of the meter solar. So the community solar projects will directly put their electricity onto the grid, onto the local distribution network, rather than being consumed on premises first. I think those are kind of the major similarities and differences that come top of mind. So I hope that's helpful.

for your testimony today uh my name is jeremy ross i'm here representing uh ibew 111 and we're here to speak in opposition to this bill um you know i had a i had an idea of what i was going to come up here and talk about but it's a little frustrating when we have people that want to sit up here and talk about what IBEW's position is or isn't or the impact to IBEW one way or the other. Currently, our members are out there working on lines every single day, often 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. So even assuming that this would be a big windfall of work, I don't know in what hours we would like those linemen to do that work. is the expectation that we work folks 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because that's the only alternative to what they're working now. They are largely working nationwide, whether they work for a utility or whether they're work for a contractor 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, because there is a lack of workforce in this space nationwide. You can pick up any article, any, I mean, almost weekly, there's somebody writing about the shortage of workforce in this space. This is an inherently dangerous job that these folks go out and do every single day to support their families and the idea that there would be some big windfall of work for a workforce that's already strapped they are maxed out every single day so i think it's a little disingenuous for folks to come up here and sit and talk about what the position is or isn't uh of the of the men and women of the IBEW. Second, I think this bill has, you know, kind of another inherent flaw that it's just making an assumption that there's a bunch of folks sitting around, these third-party investigators, they're just sitting around waiting for this bill to happen so that the phone will start ringing and they can run out and start doing these studies. It's my understanding currently, right now as we sit here that there's about 900 megawatts of solar in the queue. So which of these projects get bumped so that community solar goes to the front of the line? Because none of the rest of these folks have the ability to go hire their people outside of the process. So if they're allowed to jump, you know, essentially contract outside the current process, then inherently they're going to have the ability to potentially jump the line and get their studies done before the 900 megawatts of power that's currently in the queue. As these projects are planned, approved, get the acceptable stuff, they get put into a queue, and these studies are done back-to-back as quick as they can be done. There's not a bunch of people sitting around out there just waiting for their phone to ring because Community Solar wants to jump the line. That's just not the way that this process works. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Phil Hayes representing today the National Electrical Contractors Association, both the utility and the line contractors. We are in opposition to this bill. We are adamantly opposed to this bill. Really do not appreciate the proponents telling us what our work is. I will tell you what our work is not. We do not build, to my knowledge, very many solar gardens in Colorado. and what we do build is EV infrastructure. We build hospitals. We build schools, all of which are going to potentially lose their access to IRA credits and yet we have a special bill here to allow a certain number of projects to get their access to a quicker process while everyone potentially waits longer. um we do the stuff uh we do the interconnections on these large you know multiple megawatt gardens and ultimately more times than not almost exclusively the internal excel team is the ones doing these studies and we think that's really critical this is not a joke this is not a you know adding a business is not adding a rooftop solar system you're putting multiple megawatts onto the grid. You have to make sure you have all the infrastructure to support that. And our members are going out there with their workers and their contractors, and they're risking their safety and the safety of the infrastructure attached to the grid to make sure these studies are done to the best ability The internal team in Excel they know all the quirks they all know all the tricks You have people that work with particular sections of the grid almost exclusively and they know exactly what needs to be done. Speeding up the study will not guarantee that we have the ability to get the actual upgrades to the distribution system done. And what you're ultimately going to do is you're going to put the work that we do with our members on EV infrastructure, hospitals, schools at the back of the line so that a non-union solar garden can get to the front of the line. So, you know, if you guys want to support that, my mama was a teacher. She told me you don't cut in line. And I think that's a fundamental issue with this bill. And I tell you, ultimately, we will get some work out of this, but we have a massive delay because of our goals before infrastructure energy policy in the state. And we've been saying for 20 years that we have to put transmission and distribution infrastructure first before we add all this solar to the system. And here we are today finding out that 18 to 36 months for an interconnection on any major project, it's only going to get worse unless we start actually putting real infrastructure and focus on this issue. And I appreciate a lot of the legislation that's doing that, but this is a problem that we need to solve on a broader scale. Thank you.

Hi, Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Neil Cowan. I am a manager of regulatory policy for Xcel Energy. I specialize in policy-related distribution system planning and programming for distributed energy resources. I have worked in this space for the past 13 years, and last September I'm proud to have completed 20 years of service with the company. I'm here today to provide testimony in opposition of House Bill 1225. Excel shares the goal of accelerating distributed energy resources after the loss of federal tax credits. In fact, last year, we worked with many of the same stakeholders in front of you today to expedite the procurement of these projects in front of the PUC. The company does not, however, believe that the bill in front of you today provides value our customers deserve. This bill is amending statute that was enacted in 2024. That bill required the company to significantly expand community solar capacity, which based on current estimates will cost customers nearly $900 million over the next 20 to 25 years. The proposed bill credit changes in the bill would increase those costs to our customers on behalf of these solar developers to a staggering $1.4 billion in the next 20 to 25 years, perhaps even more. At this point, community solar gardens do not justify these costs. Community solar gardens are not grid-optimized resources. They are typically cited based on land availability rather than system need, and their contribution to the system is very limited. Customers are being asked to pay more for resources that do not materially improve reliability, resiliency, or cost-effective decarbonization. That is not sound energy policy. we strongly encourage a transition towards distributed solar that is paired with energy storage and can explicitly identify benefits for customers such as relieving stress on the grid increasing reliability and resiliency and reliability providing capacity during peak demand and reducing utility solar curtailment In addition to asking our customers to subsidize costs for these developers the interconnection charges proposed in this bill creates significant concerns for the company. Allowing third-party companies to interconnect and even construct system upgrades could have serious security concerns giving companies access to utility and customer data. I also want to stress that introducing a third party into this process will not help these developers get their projects done faster. In fact, we believe it could slow their work down. Thank you for the time to share our concerns with you. There are more areas of concerns I was not able to address in the allotted time, but I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

I just want to thank the panel for being here today and thank you for expressing your concern. I wanted to hear a little bit more maybe for, sorry, for the representative from IBEW or for Mr. Hayes. How does this bill impact? You mentioned infrastructure, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about your workers, the workforce. How does it impact them? Thank you.

well like i mentioned earlier there this is a workforce that is largely tapped out and it's it's a nationwide problem this isn't just this isn't unique to colorado this is a workforce that these are inherently dangerous jobs these are workers that often are called to you know to come and get the power back on when there's been an emergency whether it's a weather condition or whatever whatever happens in an area whether it's puerto rico whether it's the carolinas uh new york florida texas um these these workers go out work in some of the worst conditions to get the power lines back up and get get people back online and so um between you know their responsibility and the and the the tasks that they have in those situations and then just the day-to-day grind of keeping the grid operational and dealing with trying to expand the grid everywhere in the country, right, as we're trying to make this transition. It's just a workforce that is largely tapped out. And, you know, the fact that there's folks that want to talk about the safety of workforce and they, you know, have never worked a day on a power line, they've never worked a day climbing a tower in the worst conditions possible often is, you know, I just think really frustrating and disingenuous. The safety of our workforce is our number one concern. We want to make sure that each and every one of our members goes to work in the morning and has the ability to go home the same way they showed up that morning.

Mr Hayes Thank you Rep Goldstein From the contractor perspective let me walk you through kind of how things work So we subcontractors so we hired onto a project to do the electrical or the utility parts of the construction in 2004 we were seeing delays almost globally of 18 to 36 months for interconnections on any large project that needed a major utility upgrade or or you know had a large load they were adding or a new generation they were adding it is now grown in according to our contractors on average anywhere from 36 to 48 months that is particularly frustrating because in 2018 we worked with the proponents of this bill to pass Senate Bill 24 to 18, which gave the PUC $100 million of emergency rider space. I'm sure some of you remember this bill to deal with some of these delays and urgent interconnection needs on solar projects and things like that. The PUC completely whiffed and only approved $25 million of the $100 million they had to do that. And it's only gotten worse, folks. And what happens for us is that when we can't get assurity that we're going to get interconnected, the builder then says, okay, well, I'm either going to cancel the project. I'm going to lay all your folks off and put you guys on hiatus while we wait for the interconnection and we'll call you back then. And then we've got to shift, you know, from the contractor's perspective, our workforce to work on other projects while we're waiting to figure out what's going on with this interconnection. When H.R. 1 passed, it created a crunch on, you know, what folks thought they had about a six to seven year window to get their project completed to have the access to the credit. And I think this notion that this bill is not going to push those projects down the line so that we can interconnect these solar gardens first doesn't bear out. If I'm in line and I have a timeline to get my interconnection and a group of projects is allowed to accelerate their study and get it done quicker and I don't have that opportunity, then how does that not delay me further? The dog doesn't hunt, as my mom used to say. But ultimately, we should be figuring out an alternative to this proposal, which is working with the utilities to triage what are the highest value projects, either on the solar side, the EV side, other major projects that are in danger of losing these incentives, and prioritize what we're actually doing to get those greenlit as quickly as possible and having it be an iterative process where the utility, solar developers, contractors, unions, other people are actually dealing with that. And that's not what we had here. And so I think that's really my concern. Thank you.

May I take that? Yes, sir, Mr. Cowan.

Thank you. All right.

Mr. Hayes or Mr. Cowan?

Thanks, Representative. So the way it works is you essentially get your permitting and your project started. You begin construction. You get negotiating with the utility in your area as to how you're going to interconnect. Once you get close to finishing your project, then you sort of start getting to the point where you get in a queue to have your study done. and you know the projects you know are based you know it's like lining up at school which is why i use that analogy you know you you get in line and you're in line where you are and essentially if you are allowing a certain group of projects to accelerate their study in any way i do not understand this claim that proponents make that that does not somehow allow you quicker access to get the interconnection and they're telling you in their testimony they want quicker access to the interconnection. And I think my point is, if I'm a hospital with a big solar array that wants to give the tax credit or a school or an EV, you know, an industrial scale EV infrastructure project or any other thing that would be eligible for an IRA tax credit, and I don't get access because I'm not included in this legislation to get a quicker study, then therefore I am basically getting pushed down the line. It's basic logic. And that's our point.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple questions I have. One is, like, what is the, you said the load carrying capacity started off at 30%. I guess that's for Mr. Hayes. And then now they're at 10%. I think the other question I had, so I'm not sure, getting confused on who would answer this, who would answer this, but you said Excel had $100 million, or the PUC had $100 million to address this backlog, and they spent $25 million of that addressing the backlog. Is that $75 million just hasn't been able to, because of the resources, because such a tremendously low available, I mean, overtapped resource, have they just not been able to spend it, or is this money going someplace else?

We'll start with Mr. Cowan. Trying to remember. I didn't fully understand your question. So the effective load carrying capability, ELCC, basically the metric that kind of tells you how well this generation resource can handle peak load kind of a very important very important like does this really help us you know put those electrons on at the right time That was, at one point in time, years ago, 30%. But since we have stacked our system with renewable resources, that is forecasted to sink down below 10%.

Okay. Yes, Mr. Cohen, please.

okay uh mr hayes um the second half of representative de graff's question

Representative DeGraff.

Rep Goldstein. Thank you, Chair. Mr. Ross or Mr. Hayes, you mentioned that you're sort of workers. My question then is we're gonna be having a pretty robust conversation about data centers.

All right. I think we should move forward. Thank you very much for your testimony here today. All right. We will now invite Faith Ryan, Devin Reynolds, Ramesh Bhatt, Shoal Danforth, Speaker Casey Becker, and Ellen Kutzer. all right so we'll start with those in the room first ma'am welcome please turn on your microphone there you'll have three minutes for testimony today right in the bottom of the mic yep

Thank you very much. Sir, please introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes for testimony today.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Bott.

Thank you, Mr. Bott. Ms. Ryan, please unmute yourself, turn on your camera if you can.

Thank you. Committee questions for the panel?

Ms. Cuttser? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative. Let me attempt to answer that by describing what happens in the private sector, which again, Excel Energy is already utilizing to perform a lot of these studies. So if you go to a big engineering firm who has many, many staff, our members would be able to directly contract with those same types of engineers at AECOM or Burns and McDonald to have additional consultants available. And it's going to be the same consultants from probably the same companies who are available to do that work. So there's more bodies involved in performing these studies. you're correct in observing that there's probably ultimately a limit to how many people are qualified as engineers to perform these studies you know at all but i do think if you open the universe of available consultants to more staff than maybe directly on contract with excel right now you're going to have more people available to perform that work so that is what i mean when i say there's a

Now, again, I will qualify. There are a limited number of folks who are able to do this electrical work, but it would be giving the resources to a new set of personnel who could also be performing this, who may not be performing it today.

Thank you, Chair. This is another question, follow-up for you, Ms. Cutter. What percentage of the workers that you're talking about here are union workers?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not an expert in this area. I do think that there are many workers who are union shopsters and electric is one. the only percentage I have in my mind is the overall percentage of union workers versus non-union electricians in Colorado from our friends at the independent electricians and I do believe that the percentage is eight percent union 92 percent non-union in the state so you'd need to ask someone like Mr. Hayes for the exact percentages thank you thank you all right seeing

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move Amendment L-004.

Representative Wilford. Thank you very much. This amendment is in response to concerns about the cost of the community solar bill credit aspect of the bill. While we don't think that the cost of the introduced bill would be anything like what Excel has claimed, the chances of additional cost to the ratepayer will be reduced considerably by tying the bill credit rate adjustment only to low-income subscribers and only to the consumer price index for the cost of energy. Low-income subscribers make up about half of the subscribers in the community solar program. They receive a large benefit from community solar because their utility bills are reduced by community solar bill credits. And having predictability in billing matters a lot for them. The consumer price index is expected to be lower than average retail rate, which is what was originally in the bill. So the amendment will make the likelihood of additional costs even lower. It's also a good metric to preserve the value of the bill credit for the low income subscriber as it would increase the bill credit compared to the true cost of living. And we ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move amendment L5 to House Bill 1225. Second. Seconded by Vice Chair Velasco, Representative Wilford Thank you This is all going to be a bit of a repeat from what I outlined in our opening statement so just bear with me This amendment provides cleanup language from Senate Bill 24 This was the Inclusive Community Solar Bill. This amendment was suggested by Western Resource Advocates to make sure solar plus batteries facilities can clearly fit into the definition of dispatchable distributed resources that was put forth in the previously mentioned Senate bill, and I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move Amendment L6 to House Bill 1225.

Representative Wilford? Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. this amendment came at the suggestion of the Colorado Rural Electric Association. It clarifies that this bill only applies to investor-owned utilities. And I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I move amendment L7 to House Bill 1225.

Amendment 7 takes out the section of the bill that mentions that a developer could appeal an adverse interconnection decision. Again, as a reminder, there's already an existing appeals process for interconnection disputes in PUC rules, and we don't feel like it's necessary to restate that process in the bill. I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move amendment L8 to House Bill 1225.

Representative Wilford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're bringing this amendment after discussions with Black Hills, the third party interconnection provision shouldn't apply to them because they currently do all of their interconnection studies and upgrades using in-house labor. And I ask for an aye vote.

Not from us, but I believe there are members of the committee that have amendments.

I have L010.

I move amendment L010 to House Bill 1225 to the committee.

Amend printed bill page seven line 24 strike standards and substitute standards, including the applicable requirements of the Colorado energy sector, public works, project craft labor requirement act, part three of article 92 of title 24. This amendment makes it clear that any interconnection upgrade work contracted by a third party must meet the labor standards for apprenticeships and prevailing wage that already applies to community solar projects. over one megawatt in size. Those requirements were put into law in 2023 through Senate Bill 23-292, and we just want to make sure interconnection upgrade work is covered by those pro-labor standards.

Thank you very much, Representative Goldstein, for this amendment. We ask the committee to support it. Thank you.

I move L-011 to House Bill 1225. It is striking the safety clause and replacing it with petition.

Representative Wilford or Representative Smith? And we are A-OK with this amendment.

Representative Smith. Thank you very much, committee, and all of those that came to testify. We had, I feel like, a very good discussion. I just would like to point out that the legislature mandated that 300 megawatts be developed and that XL should do this before the tax credits expire. I also heard that there's 900 megawatts in the queue now, and I'm just wondering how many of those are community solar. I know SunShare alone has 75 projects, but I understand the jumping in the line, and we are more than willing to work with Excel or IBEW regarding this and any other amendments that would help move them towards agreeing to this bill. But I just want to say that this is about consumer choice and particularly helps low-income utility customers. It preserves the value of bill credits, speeds up interconnection, allows the use of surety bonds and other financial mechanisms, and prevents premature collection of interconnection costs. And I urge you to vote yes for HB 26-1225. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for your great questions and for your attention and engaging with the witnesses. I appreciate everybody who came out and shared their perspective and really do look forward to continuing the conversation and exploring ways to find a path forward together I do want to address just a few points that we heard during testimony This concept of jumping the line, that particular argument, I think is important to really address. And I think first and foremost, it's important to recognize that there are other states that are currently using third parties to conduct studies. And, you know, I also think that allowing distributed energy developers to contract with third parties for interconnection studies and upgrades, it just doesn't create a scenario in which they're jumping the line. It provides more capacity than Excel currently has to do it themselves. And it creates, you know, what one other individual called a second line. It allows for more interconnection studies and upgrades, again, than would normally occur, and it won't cause other entities in the queues to go lower in the queue. We also heard an argument that we need to fix the fundamental issues with our distribution grid, and I think that's a great idea, but that's going to take a lot longer than doing what's necessary to meet the 2029 deadline for claiming federal tax credits on new distributed energy projects. And then finally, I've really appreciated the way in which this conversation has centered on workers. I think workers are a huge part of power in Colorado and we respect them. We honor the work that they do, not only for our communities, but for their families as well. And at the same time, I want to challenge everybody to also think about the subscribers, the potentially 85,000 people who could, with 300 new megawatts of community solar, be able to subscribe and get access to clean energy. These are folks that may live in multifamily housing and can't install rooftop solar. These are also potentially folks that are income qualified who are going to reap the benefits of having lower cost energy bills. So I'd ask that you keep those folks in mind as you take this vote. And again, we are very open and willing to continue conversations and do ask for your aye vote today.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sponsors, for bringing this bill forward. As a representative from Boulder, these policies are extremely important to my community. But I have to share with you that it did pain me any time that I see a policy that I support and I see labor here and they are testifying in opposition to the bill. It pains me. It gives me heartburn. I did, prior to coming to this committee, I did intend to vote for your bill. And I will vote yes on your bill. But I just wanted to note to Representative Wilford's comment, workers, power, or economy. They are an integral part of the work that we do here at the state capitol. And I appreciate the comment made by our good representative Smith, who mentioned that she will continue to work with IBEW on the issue of jumping the line. Please continue to work with them because it is, they are important, right? Yes, we want clean air, but for who? For all workers right So please continue to do that work I did hear concern from Excel around you You responded to that but I still am not satisfied with your response around the security issue around third party interconnection. I've heard that as well. This is something that is extremely important to us when it comes to the infrastructure of our grid. So please continue to do that work. I will be a yes today. Please continue to do that work. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. We have this beautiful thing in the sky that creates all this energy that we should do whatever we can to harness it. And, you know, I'm very much a solar gal. My house has them because I can afford them. But I see the point of where people can't afford them. And it doesn't run out. I mean, if it does, we all have problems. But I also hear the concerns of labor and how they don't have enough folks to do the work. It's concerning to find out that they are a small percent, the union workers are a small percentage of the rest of the labor force. I hope that we can have conversations around that in another setting. I'm willing to give you the time to do some more work on this bill. So I don't feel like it's in a place to ship it out the door or done. But at the same time, I don't want to kill it either. So today, I can't say that on third reading I will be a yes, but today I will be a yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I said you're here officially now. I don't think I ever checked you in. I am here. I, yes, happy to be so also. Yeah, so I appreciate the work of the bill sponsors on this. I think I have said in committee plenty of times, if everybody wasn't sure, I am not a climate activist. That said, I have no problem with renewable energy and it being used as people choose to build it and use it. I don't think it should be forced on us in any way, shape, or form. But yeah, if it makes sense and it works for people, I have no problems with it. That said still, I still have questions. I know bill sponsors know other folks. I have been asking questions and trying to get to the bottom of how I really feel about this for I feel like it's been several weeks. It keeps popping up to things. And I still have questions. I still have concerns about shifting costs and inequity in credits and how that stacks for different rate payers and subscribers versus not subscribers. I have concerns about strain and infrastructure things. I think that there is potential for it, but I'm concerned about what it looks like now. I appreciated the comments from our labor representatives. That wasn't honestly something that I had thought about previously very much at all. But as a general contractor I know that there are people who do things like that that are in short supply everywhere So I think that that was good information to have I still going to continue to look at things I certainly will not be committing to how I will feel when this is on the floor for today because of some of the concerns and some of the... There's things in the legislative declaration that as I read it, I just kind of tend to shake my head because I don't think they present accurately. And I know that that's not the actioning part of the legislation, but it's the declaration part. It's telling us why we're trying to do some of these things. So if the why is for some of those reasons, I think that's maybe my biggest concerns. So I won't waste any more time talking about things. I'm happy to continue to have the conversations. I definitely want to learn more because I don't mind renewable things as long as we are choosing to do it. For today, we'll see how I am when we get there. I'm still going to think about it. Sorry for the suspense on that one. That was not intended.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sponsors, for the bill and for everyone who came to testify today. I understand what it is that you're trying to accomplish. And I echo Rep. Joseph's sentiments in, you know, when you have a bill and then you have Labor, who is, you know, opposed, like that gives me a lot of heartburn and stress because we know how crucial they are to our economy and our workforce. And so I appreciate the amendment that Rep. Goldstein brought, and I appreciate your commitment to continuing to work with labor on this to try and get this in a position to where they are not opposed. And so I'll be a yes for today based on your commitment to work things out with labor. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I have a lot of the same sentiments that were said previously by Rep. Jackson and by Rep. Joseph. And so it took me a while to wrap my head around exactly what we were talking about with these cues and, you know, who's flowing through them. And I think the conclusion that I understood is this is going to work because we're going to be using non-union labor. Otherwise, we wouldn't have enough labor. and that is why labor is opposed to it, union labor. So that is a big concern for me. I hear you're open to keep talking and I hope you do and I hope this gets figured out because I find that very frustrating. I am going to be a no for today, but I am hoping I will be a yes on the floor because this gets worked out.

Representative Smith. I move House Bill 26-1225 as amended to the Committee of Finance.

Representatives Barone.

Yes, for today. Goldstein.

Yes, for today. Joseph.

Respectfully, no, for today. Rutenel. Yes. Saw. No for today. Smith. Yes. Wilford. Yes. Wug. No for today.