Date: 04/16/2015

Final
BILL SUMMARY for HB15-1284

SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NATURAL RESOURCES, & ENERGY

Votes: View--> Action Taken:
Refer House Bill 15-1284 to the Committee of the WPASS



01:41 PM -- HB 15-1284

 Senator Grantham and Senator Hodge, co-prime sponsors, described the provisions of House Bill 15-1284 concerning shared photovoltaic facilities. Under Colorado's renewable energy standard, retail customers whose property is not well suited for on-site generation may buy output from a centrally located distributed generation facility with other subscribers. These facilities are known as community solar gardens (CSG's). Current law requires subscribers to live in the same county as the CSG with one exception. If the subscriber's county has less than 20,000 residents, the CSG may be in an adjacent county as long as that county also has less than 20,000 residents. This bill, as amended by the House Transportation & Energy Committee, eliminates these population requirements.

The following persons testified on the bill:

01:44 PM -- David Amster, SunShare, spoke in support of the bill and discussed the CSGs that his company has built. He also distributed letters of support for the bill from Clean Energy Collective (Attachment A), the Town of Breckenridge (Attachment B), and Bella Energy, Inc. (Attachment C).

150416 AttachA.pdf150416 AttachA.pdf150416 AttachB.pdf150416 AttachB.pdf150416 AttachC.pdf150416 AttachC.pdf

01:52 PM -- William Crimmins, University of Colorado Boulder Economics Department, spoke in support of the bill.

01:55 PM -- Di Graski, Colorado Springs City Council, spoke in support of the bill and discussed the CSG of which she is a customer. She also distributed a letter of support for the bill from the Chair of the Colorado Springs City Council (Attachment D).

150416 AttachD.pdf150416 AttachD.pdf

01:58 PM -- Karsey Christ-Tamer, representing herself, spoke in support of the bill and discussed the CSG of which she is a customer.

02:01 PM -- Richard Orf, Colorado Mining Association, Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado, spoke in opposition to the bill.

02:04 PM -- Dan O'Connell, Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, spoke in opposition to the bill and responded to questions from the committee about the cost of CSGs to other customers under current law.

02:09 PM -- Alice Jackson, Xcel Energy, spoke in opposition to the bill. She also discussed the cost of CSGs on nonparticipating utility customers and explained that CSGs are not regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

02:15 PM

Mr. Amster responded to questions from the committee about the regulation of CSGs by the PUC and the cost of CSGs on nonparticipating utility customers.

02:23 PM

The chair closed testimony and Senator Grantham and Senator Hodge closed their remarks on the bill.
BILL:HB15-1284
TIME: 02:25:54 PM
MOVED:Hodge
MOTION:Refer House Bill 15-1284 to the Committee of the Whole. The motion passed on a vote of 7-2.
SECONDED:
VOTE
Baumgardner
No
Cooke
Yes
Donovan
Yes
Garcia
Yes
Hodge
Yes
Jones
Yes
Scott
Yes
Roberts
Yes
Sonnenberg
No
Final YES: 7 NO: 2 EXC: 0 ABS: 0 FINAL ACTION: PASS