Public Citizen Letter to Denton City Council Opposing Denton Municipal Electric’s Proposed Net Metering Repeal
Denton City Hall
215 E McKinney Street
Denton, TX 76201
Delivered via email
Re: Denton Municipal Electric Net Metering Repeal
Dear Mayor Hudspeth, City Council, and City Manager Hensley:
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest throughout Texas. We work with people across Texas, including Denton, to support the accessibility of clean renewable energy, including rooftop solar.
Public Citizen opposes the Denton Municipal Electric proposal to repeal the net metering policy and replace it with a much lower rate for energy produced by rooftop solar. Your constituents include residents who have invested – or plan to invest – in a rooftop solar system who want to do their part for a healthy environment, save on electric bills, and provide energy security for their families. We urge you to join them in opposing the DME proposal when the utility takes it to the City Council on Sept. 17.
Polling repeatedly shows that rooftop solar is very popular—in Texas and across the country– and it’s no surprise. Not only does this renewable source of energy avoid air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but it also avoids the need to develop more land. Rooftop solar is also especially valuable to communities because it creates local jobs, generates sales tax revenue, and allows for resiliency when paired with batteries – which is increasingly common.
Rooftop solar also provides incredible benefits to the electric grid and electric utilities, though many utilities – including DME – aren’t well-versed in assessing that value. Rooftop solar avoids the need for costly and increasingly unreliable transmission, provides energy at a time of day when prices on the ERCOT market are high, reduces the need for ancillary services, suppresses local market prices, and reduces distribution system costs.1
DME’s proposal to exclude climate and air quality benefits from the value of solar doesn’t reflect reality and does a disservice to the people of Denton. Although Denton Municipal Electric does purchase renewable energy and retire the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) that offset its load, they do not offset all DME’s emissions, including those from the gas-burning Denton Energy Center (DEC). Additionally, DME’s renewable energy portfolio does not currently align with demand from the utility’s customers, and the utility still relies on fossil fuel generation from the ERCOT grid. Therefore, the ERCOT emissions rate is an appropriate proxy for the avoided emissions from rooftop solar. The DME proposal fails to account for the improved local air quality and climate benefits of reducing the need to burn natural gas at the DEC, or purchase electricity created through the burning of natural gas or coal in the ERCOT market.
If conserving the health of the climate and the local air quality of the people of Denton are priorities for the city of Denton, policies and rates must align with those priorities. For Denton to increase local renewable energy generation, as directed by the City Council-approved Denton Climate Action Plan, the city council must allocate appropriate value to the environmental benefits of rooftop solar. By offering a fair price for electricity produced from rooftop solar systems, more people are likely to invest in the technology.
The simplest and easiest solution is to maintain the current net metering policy. Numerous independent value of solar studies show that net metering is a fair rate policy. However, if the Council and DME wish to accurately examine the full value rooftop solar provides, we strongly encourage a new value of solar study that follows the best practices established in the National Standard Practice Manual for Benefit-Cost Analysis of Distributed Energy Resources. This manual provides a systematic approach to accurately valuing the energy that comes from rooftop solar in a specific area.
The City of Denton has demonstrated considerable success building a clean energy portfolio that includes energy efficiency incentives, renewable energy, and a new climate action plan. The city deserves praise for what it has done to this point. Still, there is a lot of work to be done, and a repeal of Denton’s net metering policy would hinder progress towards a clean future. The DME proposal, on the other hand, guarantees more carbon emissions.
City Council should reject this proposal and make it clear that any future discussions of the net metering policy must be considered only after completion of a new value of solar study that follows the best practices described in the National Standard Practice Manual.
We ask you to stand on the side of fairness, a healthy environment and energy security, and against the DME proposal.
Respectfully,
Kamil Cook
Climate and Clean Energy Associate
Public Citizen Texas
1“Value of Residential Solar in Texas.” Dunsky Energy & Climate Advisors for Texas Solar Energy Society. July 16, 2024. https://txses.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Value-of-Residential-Solar-in-Texas.pdf.