City offers 10-year floor for commercial standard-offer to steady developer revenues as rates fall

Valerie Paxton, program manager for customer renewable solutions, briefed the Resource Management Commission on the commercial solar standard-offer program, which creates a tariff-based route for commercial rooftop solar to feed community solar subscriptions.

Paxton said the program has received 28 applications since opening in January 2025 and has 16 MW AC on record; 17 projects are encumbered or in advanced review and two systems totaling 1.1 MW AC are fully installed. She told commissioners that a November 2026 rate adjustment will lower the standard-offer and value-of-solar rates (examples given: an 11.24¢ current value dropping to ~9.58¢ for under-1-MW systems and a drop from 8.41¢ to 6.91¢ for systems above 1 MW if adjustments are approved), creating developer pause.

To stabilize developer revenues and keep projects moving, Paxton proposed using community benefit charge (CBC) incentive dollars to provide a 10-year minimum-price guarantee for the next 30 MW of capacity. The floor would hold at 11¢ for systems under a megawatt and 8¢ for systems over a megawatt for ten years; there is no cap on upside if market rates rise.

Commissioners asked why systems over 1 MW receive lower per-kWh values; Paxton explained those systems do not capture the same avoided-transmission benefits in their ERCOT relationship. Commissioners also asked about typical system sizes (minimum 50 kW; many ~300 kW) and whether the CBC guarantee would reduce funding for other incentive programs; Paxton said the guarantee would come from the same budget used for commercial solar incentives but at a different rate structure.

Paxton said staff are working with developers and seeing the market resume activity despite some slowdown tied to anticipated rate changes. The commission did not vote on the floor guarantee during the meeting; staff said details will proceed through council or administrative approval processes.