By Pete Parsons, TXSES Executive Director.
Sine die is fast approaching, marking the close of the 89th Texas Legislative Session on June 2nd, and as far as I am concerned, it can’t come soon enough.
I recently heard a statistic that I found gob smacking: Texas’s predicted peak power demand of nearly 218 gigawatts by 2031 equals about half of the entire country’s average daily demand. And so far, we, the consumers of that power, have been saved time and time again by renewables and storage as extreme weather events have continued to bombard us the past few years.
It’s no wonder, then, that this session has been jam-packed with bills affecting solar and storage—both good and bad. I’ve been hard at work throughout the session, rushing to the Capitol to provide testimony, walk the halls to talk with legislators and their aides, and organizing installers to take action by working with our colleagues to provide the necessary education on beneficial bills, as well as those bills that have the potential to devastate our industry.
Texas Distributed Solar Legislation
I’m thrilled to say that some of the good ones we worked on have just passed or are likely to soon. Sen. Zaffirini and Rep. VanDeaver’s consumer protection bill (SB1697/HB1640) was signed into law by the Governor last week on Tuesday, May 13th. The bill requires the PUC to develop and periodically update a “transparency and best-practices guide for rooftop solar systems,” that will be available online, along with a phone number and email address that consumers can use for further information. The guide will protect and educate homeowners by giving them basic information, best practices, and things to ask your utility or otherwise consider before going solar. The bill goes into effect on September 1, 2025.
As mentioned in the last Solar Report, another consumer protection bill we’ve been actively working on with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations (TDLR) and Sen. Zaffirini’s office is the Residential Solar Retailer Regulatory Act (SB1036). The Act regulates residential solar retail transactions by requiring solar salespeople to undergo criminal background checks and to register with the TDLR annually. It tasks TDLR with adopting a variety of rules prohibiting deceptive residential solar retail tactics, like requiring solar salespeople to provide disclosures, registration and insurance information, etc. It also authorizes fees on bad actors who deceive customers about the cost or performance of a solar system and allows consumers to cancel their solar agreement without penalty within 5 business days. This law has passed in the Senate, recently passed the House committee, and is awaiting a full vote in the House. As of this publication, we anticipate this bill will have no problem making it to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law before the session is over.
We also worked on a piece of legislation that will make the building permitting process more streamlined. The importance of this legislation is that it will decrease the amount of time homeowners have to sit and wait for their permit to be issued by their local jurisdiction. The permitting process is different across the state, with some municipalities taking as long as six months to get a permit issued. As you can imagine, this just adds to the soft costs incurred by the installer and that cost has to be accounted for someplace. And you are correct, these costs get passed on to the homeowner. SB 1202 will require local jurisdictions to either respond with an approved permit within two weeks after submission or allow a third-party licensed engineer to approve the plans and drawings. If a third party gets involved, the jurisdiction must issue a permit within two days after receipt of the plans.
I could go on and on about all the craziness I have been witnessing up close and personal at the Capitol since January. I swear, if I live to be 100 years old, I will never stop being amazed at the good, the bad and the extremely ugly process of making sausage that takes place in Austin every other year.
Federal Legislation
In case what’s happening in Texas wasn’t enough, at the Federal level, the U.S. Congress is trying to obstruct solar development and remove the 30% tax credits provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. The House Ways and Means Committee voted last week to end the Residential Solar Tax Credit and phase out the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for residential rooftop solar nearly a decade early, by December 31st, 2025, as part of their budget reconciliation bill.
UPDATE: The House budget bill passed overnight (5/21/25) by one vote and will now go on to the Senate.
Read SEIA’s statement on the bill’s passage:
Solar and Storage Industry Statement on House Passage of Reconciliation Bill That Would Dismantle Greatest Industrial Revival in U.S. History, Provoke Dangerous Energy Shortage
Section 25D of the U.S. Tax Code, or the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), has had a long bi-partisan history, beginning with our own Texan, President George Bush, who signed it into law in 2005. It was extended by Presidents Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020. President Biden extended it again as part of the IRA, with phase out not meant to start until 2033.
We encourage you to call or write your Senate representatives and educate them on why keeping the tax credits in place is good for the economy. The bill still needs to pass the full Senate and be signed by the president before it becomes law, so now is the time to act.
Find your U.S. Congress members: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
– OR – Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard to ask for them: (202) 224-3121.
Next stop… the PUC, where we will work on new interconnection rules that will streamline the interconnection process for small distributed solar projects. Onward and upward!
Photo by Elle Nicholson of the Texas Senate Floor from the visitor gallery.