HB 120 expands Montana's Commercial Property-Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) program to include multifamily housing facilities with at least five residential units. This change directly affects property owners and developers of qualifying multifamily buildings (e.g., apartment complexes), allowing them to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades through property assessments. The bill amends definitions to explicitly include these residential properties under the program, covering improvements like insulation, solar panels, and energy-efficient appliances. It maintains the existing financing mechanism where costs are repaid through property taxes over time, without requiring new debt or upfront payments from property owners. The law took effect immediately upon the governor's signature on April 7, 2025.
HB 811 aimed to increase the maximum generating capacity for customer-generated electricity systems that use net metering. Currently, systems like those powered by solar, wind, or hydropower, which can feed excess electricity back to the grid, are limited to 50 kilowatts. This bill proposed to raise that capacity limit to 100 kilowatts. This change would directly affect customer-generators by allowing them to install larger renewable energy systems on their property and still qualify for net metering.
HB 31 clarifies and revises the bonding requirements for wind and solar generation facility owners in Montana to ensure proper decommissioning. It mandates that facility owners submit a decommissioning plan and provide a bond to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) within specific timeframes after commencing commercial operation. The DEQ determines the bond amount based on factors like site characteristics and salvage value. The bill also outlines various exemptions for facilities already bonded elsewhere or meeting certain size and operation criteria, and establishes penalties for non-compliance.
SB 160 requires owners of qualifying wind and solar energy facilities in Montana (solar: 2+ megawatts, wind: 25+ megawatts) to provide a decommissioning bond before construction begins. The bond amount, determined by the Department of Environmental Quality based on the owner's decommissioning plan, ensures funds are available to dismantle facilities and restore land within 24 months after a facility's end of life or abandonment. This applies to new projects and modifies existing requirements for facility owners to submit plans and bonds prior to commercial operation.
HB 670 proposes that public utilities transfer unused kilowatt-hour credits, generated by customers who produce their own electricity, to low-income energy assistance programs. Currently, any remaining unused credits accumulated by customer-generators over a 12-month period are granted back to the public utility without compensation. This bill amends existing law to specifically direct that these uncompensated credits must be credited to a fund established for universal low-income energy assistance, administered by the Department of Public Health and Human Services. The public utility would receive credit for these kilowatt-hours that fund the assistance programs.
SB 445, "Montana Transparency in Energy Economics Act," would have required investor-owned utilities to create a public energy dashboard by June 2026 showing real-time data on power sources, grid contributions, and costs per megawatt hour. Public utilities would have needed to provide quarterly reports detailing power sources (like coal, wind, solar), consumption by customer class, and costs. The bill directly affects residential and small commercial customers (defined as using ~750 kWh monthly) by making energy billing costs more visible. However, the bill died in committee on May 23, 2025, and never became law.
SB 188 establishes Montana's "Solar Shares Act," creating a new framework for shared solar energy programs. It defines "shared solar facilities" (50kW-5MW systems serving multiple customers in the same utility area) and requires utilities to interconnect them, replacing net metering with "on-bill credits" for subscribing customers. Key provisions include: utilities must apply credits to subscribers' bills based on their share of generation, facilities must be within the utility's service territory, and credits can transfer between accounts or support low-income programs. The bill directly affects public utilities, shared solar facility owners, and residential/commercial customers who subscribe to shared solar.
