El Paso Electric expands community solar program

Workers install solar panels on a home in Katy. Rooftop systems are gaining traction in Texas. Workers install solar panels on a home in Katy. Rooftop systems are gaining traction in Texas. Photo: David A. Funchess, HC Staff Intern Photo: David A. Funchess, HC Staff Intern Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close El Paso Electric expands community solar program 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

El Paso Electric is expanding its community solar program, which allows customers to subsidize a solar farm owned by the utility and get credits towards their electricity bill.

The utility launched its community solar farm nearly a year ago and plans to contract for additional 2 megawatts to accommodate 1,000 customers waiting to get into the program. (One megawatt is enough to power 200 homes on a hot Texas day.)

The utility expects to have 2,500 customers to subscribe to program. El Paso serves more than 276,000 customers in Texas and New Mexico.

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In addition to a regular electric bill, community solar customers pay $20.96 per kilowatt hour of power used a month, according to El Paso Electric. That rate will go down to $18.99 with the addition of new customers. Bill credits from solar power can be used to reduce this monthly charge.

The program's solar power will come from a 10 megawatt farm near the Newman Power Plant in northeast El Paso.

In recent years El Paso Electric has fought to raise rates for its roughly 3,000 residential customers with rooftop solar. The latest attempt, last year, sought to increase rates for rooftop solar customers, but was dropped in favor of charging a minimum monthly bill of $30 for all new solar customers.

El Paso Electric has said it loses between $800 and $1,000 on each customer with rooftop solar and the proposed rate changes would have prevent non-solar customers from having to cover those losses to maintain the integrity of the transmission system.