Homer Electric members will be able to buy into shared solar starting in February

Homer Electric Association members will be able to buy into a shared solar or wind facility and take credits on their bills, under a tariff state regulators approved Aug. 20. It takes effect 180 days after approval, around mid-February.

Subscribers will pay a monthly community energy administration fee. The commission's public notice does not say how much. A separate monthly system fee is calculated for each subscriber organization, and that amount is not stated either.

The program lets a subscriber organization, or the utility itself, build the facility and pass bill credits to the people who sign up. Whoever applies to build pays $800 for a project of 25 kilowatts or less and $2,100 for anything larger. Those charges fall on the applicant, not on members who subscribe.

State rules for community energy say the credits do not expire, cap a facility at 10 percent of its subscribers' energy requirements, and bar utilities from adding standby, capacity or interconnection charges without commission approval. Utilities must begin reporting retail bill impacts on March 1, 2027.

Homer Electric is one of four Alaska cooperatives to file community energy tariffs this spring, along with Chugach Electric, Matanuska Electric and Golden Valley Electric.