Solar Rulings in Missouri

In Missouri some good news came in over the last week for the solar industry. A lawsuit against rebates for solar installations was rejected. The judge whose ruling was that solar rebates were unconstitutional undid his earlier ruling. This will keep in place a $2 per watt rebate that was at the heart of the lawsuit. The Missouri Retail Accociation (MRA) filed the lawsuit on Ameren’s behalf. Their argument seemed to be that by providing incentives to customers to install solar power locally it was taking money away from Ameren. Read more about the initial lawsuit here.


Because of the preliminary ruling in the first case Ameren petitioned the Missouri Public Service Commission to suspend payments of rebates for systems that were not yet approved. The Missouri Public Service Commission voted to require two energy providers Ameren and KCPL to continue to offer solar rebate programs. While this is only temporary extension lasting a least 120 days, hopefully the unanimous vote shows that the commission intends to extend this long term while this case makes it way through the courts.


The rebate in question was approved by 2/3 vote during the 2008 elections. This year energy providers are required to get 2% of their energy from renewables with that percentage growing to 15% by 2015. There was no major opposition to the proposition before the election but now some utilities are trying to fight it. Partially because of this law solar companies in the state have grown from 5 to 35 and have helped spur growth in a state that gets 80% of its electricity from Coal. While this case still has to work its way through the courts this was an important step for keeping Missouri's solar industry growing.