This is the wrong time to discourage rooftop solar power in Idaho | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Idaho Power proposes reimbursement cuts of up to 80% for excess solar energy.
- Rate reductions lengthen rooftop solar payback periods, angering residents.
- Critics say policy shifts harm solar investments and discourage adoption.
Every time I fly in and out of the Boise Airport and see all the houses, shopping centers and office buildings, I imagine rooftops covered in solar panels. Especially during the long summer months with our stretches of 90-plus and increasingly frequent 100-degree days.
Boise enjoys an average of 210 sunny days per year, ranking 16th nationally, and is 12th in total sunlight hours.
Wouldn’t it be ideal to harness all that free, renewable energy?
Unfortunately, the Idaho Public Utilities Commission is considering a plan to drastically reduce the reimbursement rates that Idaho Power pays to solar power users for excess electricity.
This reduction could mean higher monthly power bills for solar generators, diminishing the value of their investment and lengthening their return on investment timeline. Consequently, rooftop solar power could become less attractive for homeowners and businesses.
The proposed decrease and volatility could deter many from making major investments in rooftop solar — at the very time we should be incentivizing rooftop solar.
The current proposal reduces reimbursement rates by 17-80%. The proposed rates per kWh are:
- Summer on-peak (3-11 p.m., Monday-Saturday, excluding holidays): 14.0598¢ (currently 16.9966¢), a 17% decrease.
- Summer off-peak (11 p.m.-3 p.m., Monday-Saturday, and all hours Sundays and holidays): 1.7682¢ (currently 5.6533¢), a 69% decrease.
- Non-summer (October-May): 0.9540¢ (currently 4.8365¢), an 80% decrease.
Residential rooftop solar panel customers have said they feel blindsided by such drastic rate decreases.
“When we signed up, we knew they could adjust things, but I don’t think we thought the PUC would allow something like this to happen honestly,” Kevin Ehle, of Meridian, told me in a phone interview. “So we just got blindsided.”
Solar panel customers
Ehle bought his solar panels in April 2023 for $35,000. With a 33% federal solar tax rebate of $12,000, his net cost was $23,000. He put $10,000 down and financed $13,000, with monthly payments of about $146, expecting to pay off the panels in about eight years.
His solar panels on his 2,400-square-foot house generated enough electricity to cover his summer use and sell excess power back to Idaho Power for winter credits.
Before solar, his annual power bill was around $2,000. After installing solar, he paid $70 in 2023 and $84 in 2024.
“It’s working great, right?” Ehle said. “That’s what we signed up for. We’re saving about $1,600-$1,800 a year, so we can more quickly pay off these solar panels.”
Under the new rates, he estimates he’ll be paying $400-$500 per year.
“The people who really counted on this to help pay off their panels, it’s going to take them 30 years, based on this new program, to pay off their panels,” he said. “Yeah, they’re just screwed. They’re going to be underwater.”
Going solar for the right reasons
Karen Palazzolo, of Boise, said she and her husband considered solar panels in 2019, which would have grandfathered them in as “legacy” users until 2045. They purchased them in 2020, leaving them subject to the reimbursement changes.
They paid $12,412 for their panels; after tax credits, the cost was $8,217. The payback period was initially estimated at 14 years. They sized their panels to cover their household’s power use and initially only paid Idaho Power’s service charge. However, Idaho Power’s switch to net billing changed their reimbursement.
In March, the Palazzolos used 213 kWh, charged $18 at 8.7 cents per kWh. Their panels generated 374 excess kWh, for which they were paid $18 at 4.8 cents per kWh. This resulted in no net gain despite their excess production. This has led some customers to accuse Idaho Power of “stealing electricity.”
At a May 7 PUC workshop, engineer Matt Suess explained that the price customers pay includes more than energy costs, such as infrastructure and maintenance. When solar customers export energy, they are compensated for the energy value and contribution to capacity, not these additional costs.
That’s cold comfort to someone like Palazzolo.
“I don’t understand their motivation,” Karen Palazzolo said. “They just seem to be so against solar that they just keep making it worse and worse for people. We put (solar panels) in to be environmentally (friendly), like it was me wanting to be environmental and thinking it was good for everybody, right?”
‘Punished for doing the right thing’
Sara Palma, of Boise, and her husband bought their solar panel system in 2020 and installed it in 2021 for $32,000, receiving an $8,000 tax refund. They pay $260 per month on a 12-year loan. Palma cited “climate anxiety” as part of the motivation for their purchase. They sized their system to accommodate charging an electric vehicle. Before solar, they spent $50-$120 per month on electricity. They were initially unaware that Idaho Power could change reimbursement rates. They were under the one-to-one swap deal initially, but that changed with net billing.
“We’ve already blown through all of the credits that we had, and now we’re starting to pay again,” Palma said. “I think we’ve had a couple bills since the compensation changes went into effect, and it’s super discouraging.”
Idaho Power also raised its monthly service fee from $5 to $15.
“It’s like they’re draining our bank, our excess savings of credits, and charging us on top of it,” she said. “It’s really frustrating. It’s like we are being punished for doing the right thing.”
Idaho Power responds
Idaho Power spokesperson Jordan Rodriguez said the proposed changes are part of a process established by the PUC in 2023, which includes annual rate assessments to ensure up-to-date accuracy. The lower rates this year reflect lower 2024 energy market prices compared to 2022, influenced by pandemic effects, drought conditions and economic changes.
“The original (reimbursement rate) was established based on 2022 energy market prices, and the ones we saw for 2024 … were significantly lower,” Rodriguez said.
The rate is meant to reflect the market value of energy and adjust annually to reflect changing conditions. Annual cost adjustments are common, including Idaho Power’s rates to customers. Idaho Power serves over 650,000 customers, with about 19,000 having on-site generation.
The rate reduction is based on a formula established after a two-year Idaho Power study.
A third-party study by Crossborder Energy produced significantly different results, valuing excess solar credits at 16.7 cents per kWh, compared to Idaho Power’s 3.8 cents.
The PUC used Idaho Power’s values.
“Our study is based on years and decades worth of real data,” Rodriguez said in defense of Idaho Power’s numbers. “We know what it costs to serve customers.”
Solar power company
Bryan Lawley, president of Meridian-based EGT Solar, argues that the utility is making clear attempts to deliberately eliminate solar industry competition long term. He said solar poses a threat because it is simply a cheaper and cleaner alternative to utility-supplied power from multiple mixed sources.
“This feels like pure anti-competition at its finest,” Lawley said in a phone interview. “You just can’t explain it any other way.”
Lawley said that the Public Utilities Commission has unfairly sided with Idaho Power, creating a regulatory environment that makes solar investments less attractive and potentially forces many solar companies out of business.
He said he and other longtime industry leaders feel slighted that Idaho Power wasn’t required to have an independent third-party study to ensure the rates are fair.
“Idaho Power seems to be more focused on controlling large-scale solar farm production, which creates a stronger margin for them as a company, than supporting or incentivizing distributed solar models, which creates an immense inequity for a consumer to not have the same choice,” Lawley said.
Despite the challenges, he said he remains highly optimistic about solar’s long-term potential locally as there is far more to investing into solar and batteries than just financial returns, which he said still remain very strong.
School rooftop solar project
Earlier this month, the Boise School District announced it was installing 340 solar panels at Whittier Elementary, funded by tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act. They are expected to offset 53% of power usage and save $14,560 in the first year. The investment was projected to pay for itself in 12 years. However, the district sent a letter to the PUC just two weeks later, stating that the new rates would extend the payback period to 18 years.
“This is especially challenging in a funding environment where operations dollars remain flat while utility costs continue to rise,” the letter stated.
Alison Ward, the district’s sustainability coordinator, told me in a phone interview that the district was aware rates could change but not this quickly or drastically. The district had already contracted with EGT Solar before Idaho Power’s proposal.
“We hope that the PUC will come up with a fair determination with this rate case, but I do think that (the fact that) it could change every year is problematic,” Ward said.
What’s next
Hundreds of people have submitted written comments, and nearly all of them so far have been negative. The Sierra Club, Idaho Conservation League and the city of Boise have opposed the proposed rates.
The PUC held a public hearing Tuesday night to hear from the public. Idaho Power will now have a chance to respond before the PUC makes a decision by the end of the month.
I’m still not quite convinced that the proposed new reimbursement rates are fair and accurate. I’m not entirely convinced that Crossborder’s proposed rate is fair and accurate, either.
In my experience, the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
But I do know this: Such a drastic reduction in reimbursement rates is going to hurt existing solar panel users. Some will be able to withstand it; others may not. Either way, it’s not fair to expect someone to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a long-term investment and then change the rules of the game every year.
You know how they say businesses like stability and predictability? Well, we mere humans like that, too.
I hope the PUC will take that into consideration and consider the long-term implications of discouraging rooftop solar.
Fifty years from now, when climate change is even more acute, we’re going to look back and wonder why we didn’t encourage more solar panel adoption.
“We did it all for the right reasons,” Ehle said. “Mainly to reduce pressure from the grid, and Idaho is growing, and also the cost of power. With power hikes in the future, we have power on our roof. So we thought, ‘We’re doing the right thing for all the right reasons,’ and so all of a sudden they can blindside us. That’s our main complaint.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
