Get Started with Solar

Next Steps Overview for Residential Subscribers

1. Sign contract
2. Verification
3. Start receiving credits on your monthly utility bill

Intake Process for Low-income Residential Subscribers

Depending on the Project, low-income Participants may be recruited by either the Project Manager or by the Low-Income Facilitator. The Low-income Facilitator, Community Energy Project, assists with enrollment for all low-income subscribers.

1. Phone appointment with the Low-income Facilitator to discuss the program and verify that you meet all requirements, including income and utility verification. A recent utility bill is required.
2. Once verified, you will be contacted by a Project Manager to sign a contract for a project
   1. If there are no available projects at the time of enrollment, you’ll be placed on a waitlist and notified when a project becomes available.
3. Start receiving credits on your monthly utility bill

A suitable kW-AC subscription size for a Participant is a function of three inputs:

1. A Participant’s annual electricity consumption in kWh, multiplied by:
2. The share of annual consumption desired to be offset by community solar (which may not exceed 100% and which is not recommended to exceed 80%), divided by:
3. The community solar project’s expected annual kWh production per kW-AC. A Subscription Sizing Calculator above.

Sizing Low-Income Subscriptions

Depending on the Project, low-income Participants may be recruited by either the Project Manager or by the Low-Income Facilitator. The Program Administrator will recommend subscription sizes for the low-income Participants recruited by the Low-Income Facilitator before these participants are allocated to specific Projects. Sizing recommendations are based off of the three inputs, listed above.

Portland General Electric Customers:

• Logging in to their customer account at www.portlandgeneral.com.
• Clicking on My Usage (located in the yellow-shaded box labeled Energy Tracker in the lower right-hand box of the account interface).
• Clicking the Download My Data button that appears below the chart display on the right side of the screen, and then clicking Export (without changing the default export settings provided).
• The resulting CSV file will provide a customer’s past monthly energy consumption, and can be provided to a project manager to develop an annual consumption estimate.

Pacific Power Customers:

• Logging in to their customer account at www.pacificpower.net.
• Clicking on Energy Usage in the left-hand My Account menu bar.
• Above the chart displayed on the screen, clicking the drop-down menu labeled “For the period of:” and selecting “two years” (or the greatest time period available).
• Below the chart, clicking Download Usage History (be careful not to click “Download Green Button Data” instead, as this will download the data as an XML file instead of the desired CSV file).
• The resulting CSV file will provide a customer’s past monthly energy consumption, and can be provided to a project manager to develop an annual consumption estimate.

Idaho Power Customers:

• Logging in to their customer account at www.idahopower.com.
• Clicking on View Monthly Usage (located in the boxes at the top of the screen on the main page of My Account).
• Switching the view from “Display Graph” to “Display Table”.
• Click the Download link that appears at the top right side of the table.
• The resulting CSV file will provide a customer’s past monthly energy consumption, and can be provided to a project manager to develop an annual consumption estimate.

When you’ve selected a project to join and connected with a Project Manager, they will ask you to sign a contract. The Oregon Community Solar Program requires that a Disclosure Checklist is provided within each contract. Some key information within your contract is listed below:

1. Project Manager contact information. Some Project Managers will have a customer service organization prepared to assist with any questions or changes regarding your account.
2. Contracts provided by each Project Manager are based on standard templates that are provided on the PM Resources page. Please note that the minimum length of subscription commitment is 10 years for all projects.
3. Key information must be present around fees and other charges. This should include any termination fees, transfer fees, late fees, or subscription size adjustment fees. Any of these fees are considered “off-bill” charges and your Project Manager will need to relay how these fees should be paid external to your monthly utility bill, if applicable. Low-income subscribers cannot be charged a contract termination or late payment fee.
4. A detailed outline of an example schedule of billing must be present in your contract that includes an estimated yearly savings or cost.
5. A dispute resolution process and contact information must be detailed in the contract.
6. There is a three-day right to cancel your contract after signing with no penalty if you change your mind.

Required Customer Information

The following information is required from every Participant to be given to your Project Manager at the time of enrollment:

• Participant Name – Name of customer that signed Community Solar Participant Contract. If there are multiple names on your utility account, you are signing on behalf of all account holders
• Primary account holder, as it appears on the utility bill
• Phone Number – Participant’s preferred phone number
• Email – Participant’s preferred email address
• Customer Type (Residential, Low-Income)
• Site Address – The physical address that is being enrolled in the Program.
• Site City – The city of the physical address that is being enrolled in the Program.
• Site Zip Code – The zip code of the physical address that is being enrolled in the Program
• Electric Utility – The utility serving the Site Address (Idaho Power, Pacific Power, or Portland General Electric)
• Utility Account Number – See Subscriber Resources for sample utility bills
• Utility Meter Number
• Utility Service Agreement Number
• Community Solar Project ID – The Project Manager should enter the ID of the Project that the Participant will be subscribed to
• Community Solar Subscription Size (kW-AC)
• Demographic/Firmographic Information*

*Not required for non-low-income or commercial customers

Once you’re a subscriber within the program and have signed a contract with a Project Manager, they will be your main point of contact regarding your subscription.

Billing

If your solar project has not become operational at the time of signing a contract, you won’t begin to receive bill credits until the project has begun generating electricity for your utility. Even after generation, expect that it may take a couple of months before your community solar subscription appears on your bill. Depending on when you receive your existing utility bill, there may be months when you receive no bill credits or fees and instead receive bill credits and fees for two-months’ worth of solar production on the next bill. Please refer to the Aligning Your Bill Cycle with Community Solar Credits and Fees guide under Subscriber Resources page for more information. In addition, there will be fluctuation in bill charges or savings, depending on the time of the year. Since solar generation is higher in the summer months, expect your bill credit rate to be higher in the summer and lower in the winter months. If you have any questions regarding billing, please reach out to your Project Manager.

Late or Partial Payments

There are different considerations on what a “late” bill payment is for the utility versus a Project Manager. Utility bill payments take precedent over Community Solar subscriptions in terms of payment allocation, and therefore a partial utility bill payment could result in a late fee for your Community Solar subscription. It is important to communicate with your Project Manager when this occurs.

Fees

Any additional fees are collected off-bill and the rate and method of required payment must be outlined in your contract. Fees could include a contract transfer, early termination, subscription size change, or late fee. Low-income participants are exempt from contract transfer fees, early termination fees, and late fees. A subscription size fee may not be charged to a low-income participant for reducing the size of a subscription due to their new site using less electricity annually than the subscription generates, or if the low-income participant reduces their subscription to avoid oversubscription.

Equal Pay

Equal pay customers are eligible to participate in the Program but be aware that due to variation in monthly solar generation, their bill will not be equal each month.

Risk of Oversubscription

If a participant’s community solar subscription generates more kWh than they consume over the course of a billing year (which begins in April and ends in March), the participant will be charged for the repayment of any excess kWh they’ve received through an annual reconciliation process.

To minimize the risk of oversubscription, it is recommended that subscriptions be sized to produce no more than 80% of  participants’ annual consumption, so that they are not at risk of oversubscribing. However, oversubscription may still occur due to unforeseen factors such as weather and usage habits.

Every April, a comparison of the actual kWh credited from the subscription will be made against actual kWh electricity used at the site, prorated as necessary, based on when subscription starts. The value of excess kWh credited, should there be any, will be recovered from participants and donated at the as-available-avoided cost rate for use in low income programs of the electric company serving the Participant. If this is the case, an adjustment shall be included on the Participant’s next utility bill indicated the amount due.

For low-income participants, if there is a balance owed from oversubscription, the customer’s net savings will be used to repay the oversubscribed amount until the full payment is recouped. This means that a low-income Participant that oversubscribes may not receive any savings from their subscription for some time, but their bills will never increase as a result of community solar.

The Program Administration team will be providing quarterly checks for participants and notifying their Project Managers if they are believed to be at risk of oversubscription.

Subscription Variance

Oregon Community Solar subscribers will experience variability on their monthly utility bills in terms of subscription fees and generation credits. Since solar radiation varies throughout the year in Oregon, customers will receive a majority of their bill credits in the summer months.

Changes to your Utility Account or Subscription Status

You will need to contact your Project Manager to inform them of any changes to your utility account or subscription status, such as a moving to a different address, transferring your subscription to another participant, or requesting to cancel your subscription , or legally changing your name.  Your Project Manager is responsible for updating the information that is sent to your utility for billing purposes.