Audio By Carbonatix
Financing energy-efficient upgrades through utility bills has been advertised as a way for homeowners to save money. But in implementing the financing programs in Colorado, renters got thrown into the mix.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy’s application for an on-bill financing program last September. The program would use a third party to cover the costs of energy-efficient property upgrades for an Xcel customer, such as installing heat pumps or insulating windows. Then, the customer would repay the debt at a fixed interest rate over multiple years via their monthly electricity bill.
However, state officials are clashing over a provision that would allow landlords to participate in the program and pass the costs down to their renters.
Attorney General Phil Weiser and the Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate requested a writ of certiorari or judicial review of the PUC’s decision on February 13. The petition filed in Denver County District Court argues that including renters in the program violates state law.
“The Commission denied a statutory right to tenants/renters and acted contrary to law by misinterpreting Colorado statutes regarding whether a landlord may charge a tenant or renter for energy saving measures financed through the Company’s OBF Program,” the petition reads. “The Decision failed to reconcile how important statutory provisions protecting renters would operate with OBF obligations tied to the meter, and whether and how renters can ever legally be obligated by their landlord’s OBF obligations.”
The UCA and Energy Outreach Colorado previously submitted testimony requesting that renters be excluded from the program. Opponents pointed to state law that prohibits landlords from charging tenants more for utilities than the utility provider charges for service to the tenant’s dwelling unit, and from requiring tenants to pay a markup or fee for a service for which the landlord is billed by a third party.
The PUC disagreed. The commission interpreted state law as preventing a landlord from “charging a tenant for more than the costs of service provided to the landlord,” but not from “passing the actual costs of an OBF upgrade onto a tenant,” according to its January 14 decision.
“We find that on-bill financing has the potential to provide significant benefits to renters and [income-qualified] customers and do not agree that it is necessary to exclude them from the Company’s initial offering,” the PUC stated in a prior decision. “Enhancing OBF accessibility to customers is critical to the success of the program…excluding entire segments of customers is inconsistent with the intent of providing such a program.”
The petition calls the PUC’s legal interpretation “simply incorrect.”
“Simply because the financing costs are on the utility bill does not render them to be service charges,” the petition argues, “by its very name, OBF is a finance charge, not one related to the provision of electricity to the dwelling unit.”
The petition asks the court to issue a writ of certiorari or review on the matter within thirty days. It requests that the court rule the PUC’s decision was issued “contrary to law” and enter judgment reversing it.
Spokespersons for Weiser and the PUC declined to comment on the petition. The UCA did not respond to an inquiry from Westword.
