SB203: SB203 "Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2025"; enact

Right now, Georgia customers who want solar power generally have to install panels on their own property. This bill, the Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2025, would let customers subscribe to shares of larger, off-site 'community solar facilities' and receive bill credits for the electricity those facilities generate, even if they cannot put panels on their own roof. The bill directs the Public Service Commission to set up a community solar program by January 1, 2027, sets rules for how electric utilities calculate bill credits, caps individual ownership of a facility's output, and requires nondiscriminatory interconnection of these facilities to the grid starting July 1, 2025. It also requires utilities to give customers access to their own meter usage data, in machine-readable form, so they can share it with companies offering solar, efficiency, storage, or smart-thermostat services. The law would take effect July 1, 2025.

• Creates a new legal framework (Part 6 of O.C.G.A. Chapter 3, Title 46) letting customers subscribe to off-site 'community solar facilities' and get bill credits for their share of the output.
• Requires the Public Service Commission to establish a statewide community solar program by January 1, 2027, including how bill credits are calculated from a utility's aggregate retail rate.
• Requires electric utilities to accept community solar interconnection applications on a nondiscriminatory basis starting July 1, 2025 and to create a standard interconnection agreement by October 1, 2026.
• Creates an Interconnection Working Group by January 1, 2026 to review interconnection rules and report findings to the commission by July 1, 2026.
• Requires electric utilities to give customers free access to their own meter usage data (or let them share it with third parties) in 15-minute intervals, covering at least 24 months of history.
• Limits fees utilities can charge community solar organizations, capping most fees at 1 percent of bill credit value unless the commission finds a higher fee necessary.

Customers of Georgia's largest electric utility (Georgia Power, since electric membership corporations and municipal utilities are excluded), community solar companies that build and manage these projects, the Public Service Commission, which must write new rules, and third parties such as solar, storage, or smart-thermostat companies that could receive customers' meter data.

Customers who cannot install rooftop solar, such as renters or people with shaded roofs, would gain a way to get solar bill credits by subscribing to a shared off-site facility. Utilities would face new interconnection deadlines, data-sharing duties, and commission oversight of fees and crediting rules.

• Section 46-3-82 defines key terms, including 'community solar facility,' which is capped so no single subscriber owns more than 40 percent of its output and generally limited to 5 megawatts unless located on rooftops, brownfields, landfills, or over parking lots.
• Section 46-3-83 requires subscriptions to produce real bill savings, sets estimated credits at no more than 90 percent of a subscriber's average annual bill, and bars credit checks or sign-up/exit fees.
• Section 46-3-84 requires the commission to set up the community solar program by January 1, 2027, including bill crediting rules, rollover of excess credits, and a web-based hosting capacity tool utilities must update at least twice a year.
• Section 46-3-85 requires nondiscriminatory interconnection starting July 1, 2025, creation of an Interconnection Working Group by January 1, 2026, and a standard interconnection agreement filed by each utility by October 1, 2026.
• Section 46-3-86 requires each electric utility to file a data access program by January 1, 2027, giving customers free, machine-readable access to their meter usage data in 15-minute intervals for at least 24 months.
• Section 2 sets the effective date as July 1, 2025, and Section 3 repeals conflicting laws.

1. 2025-02-20Senate Read and Referred (Senate)
2. 2025-02-19Senate Hopper (Senate)

• Jason Anavitarte (R, SD-031)Primary sponsor
• Randy Robertson (R, SD-029)
• Chuck Hufstetler (R, SD-052)
• Ricky Williams (R, SD-025)
• Sonya Halpern (D, SD-039)
• Carden Summers (R, SD-013)
• Clint Dixon (R, SD-045)
• Ed Setzler (R, SD-037)

• community solar
• renewable energy
• Georgia Power
• electric utility regulation
• energy bills