While community solar gardens are more expensive than competitively bid utility projects, Xcel says it’s trying to meet consumer demand.

“Regardless of the mandate, we’d offer some kind of community solar gardens, because our customers want it,” said Lee Gabler, senior director of customer strategy and solutions. “Customers are looking for different options. We want to provide those options.”

In Iowa, Alliant Energy is seeking developer proposals for up to 10 megawatts in new solar projects, which could increase its system-wide solar generation by 50 percent.

The 7 Rivers forum will feature John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, who argues that solar energy technology has the potential to upend the utility model in place for the better part of a century and allow communities to have more control over their energy supply.

“We can decentralize or disperse the way we generate electricity with renewables,” he said. “We can also do the same thing with authority over the grid system. We can disperse the power to control how the grid operates and the economic benefits of power generation more widely so that communities that have previously been sending their money out of the community to pay for their energy would be able to keep more of their money at home.”

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