Committee advances bill tightening disclosures and interconnection rules for rooftop solar

The Senate Utilities Committee on a voice vote advanced House Bill 2149, a measure that would impose new consumer-disclosure requirements on companies that sell residential distributed energy systems and change how utilities handle interconnection and compensation for customer-owned generation.

Nick Myers, Assistant Revisor, Office of the Revisor of Statutes, told the committee that “this bill would primarily do two things,” saying it (1) creates mandatory disclosures for distributed energy retailers selling to residential customers and (2) amends the state's parallel generation and net metering statutes to expand interconnection rules.

The disclosure and consumer-protection provisions require distributed energy retailers who sell, market or solicit residential rooftop systems for single-family homes and duplexes to be registered with the secretary of state when registration is required by law, and to give potential customers a list of specified information before a contract is signed. The bill requires the disclosures to include the total costs the customer will incur, contact information for the retailer, whether a lien may be placed on the property, and a prominent statement that the retailer is not a utility or a government agency. Myers said the bill prescribes a minimum 10-point font for certain disclosures and creates a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for violations; the statute would also allow an aggrieved consumer, the attorney general, or a county or district attorney to pursue the penalty. The bill further states that a contract can be declared void if the required disclosures were not provided.

The bill directs utilities to provide distributed energy retailers with accurate information about utility application requirements, applicable rules, service standards and compensation so retailers can make the required consumer disclosures. Section 3 directs the attorney general to convene an advisory group to produce a standardized disclosure form; Myers said the advisory group must be convened and the form published in the Kansas Register prior to the July 1, 2025 effective date for the disclosure requirements.

On interconnection, HB 2149 would amend the parallel generation statute to allow utilities to require customers seeking to install distributed systems to submit an application and pay a nonrefundable interconnection application fee that the bill requires to be "fair and reasonable." Once an application is received, a utility must notify the applicant within 30 days and act on the application within 90 days. Utilities may charge customers for studies and for system upgrades required to accept the interconnection, and may include additional contract terms such as the utility's right to disconnect a customer's generation system when it creates a problem and to conduct periodic witness testing. The bill also requires a certificate or other documentation showing a certified inspection that the system was installed to code.

HB 2149 replaces certain existing sizing limits for customer systems with a formula based on the customer's anticipated load (the transcript describes this as aligning the sizing formula with that used in the Net Metering and Easy Connection Act). The bill removes the prior statutory percentage compensation structure for exported energy and instead requires compensation at 100% of the utility's monthly avoided cost; as an alternative, a utility may determine compensation at least annually using the locational marginal price (LMP) or the monthly system average cost of energy per kilowatt-hour, but the transcript states those alternatives are limited to five years and then would sunset back to the 100% avoided-cost methodology unless the Legislature acts otherwise.

The bill also removes the existing 4% static cap in current law on the amount of parallel generation a utility must accept and replaces it with a phased aggregate cap on export capacity (including net metering and parallel generation): 6% of a utility's historic peak beginning July 1, 2025; 7% beginning July 1, 2026; and 8% beginning July 1, 2027 and each year thereafter. Myers said the calculation of historic peak excludes facilities that began service at 34.5 kV or higher during a one-year period and that the one-year exclusion and the related denial authority would sunset July 1, 2026.

Supporters at the hearing described the bill as an effort to provide statewide consistency and consumer protections for a sector that has grown rapidly. Leo Delperting, identified at the hearing as chairman of the House Utilities panel and a proponent, said, “It's rooftop solar. This is not applying to industrial commercial size, solar wind farms, anything like that.” Jessica Lucas, representing the Clean Energy Business Council, said the industry supported tighter consumer protections and praised the collaborative drafting process: “This bill is a reflection of that, and we hope will continue to make sure that consumers who want to access solar can do that.”

Utility and cooperative representatives said the bill as drafted addresses many of their concerns. Laura Lutz, director of government affairs for Evergy, told the committee the company receives “calls weekly” from customers reporting door-to-door salespeople who claim to be working with the utility: “We do not have any partnerships with any rooftop installers at this point.” She said Evergy supports the bill and its consumer-disclosure provisions.

During the hearing committee members asked technical questions about certification and licensing of installers, whether compensation can be negative under LMP pricing, grandfathering for existing customers, and the effect of homeowner association rules; testimony and discussion show no explicit grandfathering clause in the compensation change, and Myers said utilities are not prohibited from providing compensation above the minimum the bill sets.

The committee adopted several technical amendments and then passed HB 2149 out of committee favorably as amended by a voice vote. No roll-call tally was recorded in the hearing transcript. The committee closed the hearing and the measure will proceed to the next procedural step in the legislative process.

Ending note: The bill text and the reviser's memo contain additional technical provisions (for example, cross-references and a provision authorizing the Kansas Corporation Commission to set contract terms only for its regulated utilities), and proponents noted the bill's effective dates vary by section (the disclosure requirements are scheduled to take effect July 1, 2025; some sections take effect upon publication in the Kansas Register), so legislators and stakeholders said they expect additional technical amendments on the floor and in subsequent committee consideration.