Exposing and debunking the solar cost shift myth

[Note: This is the main news feature from our February newsletter, or please, if you prefer, you can download the whole newsletter here in pdf. Even better, you can subscribe and get the newsletter fresh and hot, the day they drop!]

Last year, both community solar and net metering came under threat at the state legislature. Then, along with various coalition partners and legislators, we successfully played defense. Because utility interests used the solar cost shift myth to attack both, we prepared for the start of the legislative session this year by creating our latest blogpost: 

Exposing and debunking the solar cost shift myth:

Distributed and Rooftop Solar Saves Billions for all from Sea to Shining Sea

• • By Lee Samelson & Brian Krohnke

Take a look. It has been a fun experience writing this post!

It is exhilarating and outright addictive to poke holes at billions of dollars of utility propaganda money. 

And the stakes are high.

We need more distributed solar and battery storage to defray rising energy costs because it is the quickest source of new energy to deploy. 

The solar cost shift myth is insidious because it is crafted to appeal to energy decision makers and organizations who see themselves as generally supportive of renewable power.

After accusing rooftop or customer-owned solar of raising costs for non-solar ratepayers, it then pivots to a suggestion of "let's just do utility-owned solar instead" on the claims that it is inherently more cost-effective and efficient.

For about 10 years, Community Power has watched Xcel Energy lobbyists use a version of this myth to try to undermine Minnesota’s community solar program at the State Legislature and at the MN Public Utilities Commission.

This solar cost shift myth invokes a very distorted & inverted version of equity and access to try to trick organizations and energy decision-makers who claim to care about social equity into supporting rollbacks to net metering and community solar.

One study we cite in the blog exposes those false assumptions and shows the math behind their conclusion that, in California, in 2024 alone, rooftop solar saved all ratepayers $1.49 billion.

Lobbyists with the Minnesota Rural Electric Association (MREA) have been actively using the solar cost shift myth to try to undermine Minnesota’s net metering laws. The bill they supported last year (and might again this year) would essentially stop small-scale rural solar installations! 

• See more: "Net metering for solar makes electrical power generation more democratic:
• That’s why we need to keep it and why monopoly utilities hate it,"
• By Bobby King, Minnesota Reformer. May 13, 2025.

The answer to the challenges cooperative utilities are facing is not making wind and solar power artificially more expensive. We are pleased to share an actual path forward with real solutions on affordability. 

The Rural Power coalition has a toolkit and free training that addresses ways to actually lower electric bills such as inclusive utility investment programs, designed for the 42 million member-owners of rural electric co-ops in America.

What are we supporting at the state legislature in addition to protecting community solar and net metering? 

Community Power is part of the CLEAR coalition which has issued a 2-pager that lists some additional and related legislative priorities. 

• Establishing Policy for Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) for a strong, efficient, affordable grid.
• Enabling Plug-in Solar Panels that renters and low-income ratepayers could hang from balconies or lay out in their yards.
• Preventing investor-owned utilities from driving up utility bills for CEO salaries, self-serving PR and lobbying operations.
• Promoting Instant Permitting tools to make it cheaper and faster to build rooftop solar.

We also have to mention another coalition that offers events and actions for you to get involved with called Rise & Repair, who has a bold legislative agenda of Climate Justice & Indigenous Sovereignty with an Energy Democracy section that overlaps with CLEAR.