The Fort Collins Utilities Community Solar Program allows residential electric customers to participate in solar energy generation even if they can’t install solar panels on their property—such as renters, condo owners or homeowners with shaded roofs.
Instead of installing a rooftop system, customers own shares (panels) in a centralized solar array. These participants receive monthly credits on their electric bills based on the amount of electricity their share generates.
The Riverside Community Solar Project is the primary site for the Community Solar Program. Located at the northwest corner of Mulberry Street and Riverside Avenue in Fort Collins, this site has served as the backbone of the program since its launch in 2015.
The Riverside Community Solar Project is more than just an energy solution — it's a step toward building a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future for Fort Collins.
Aligned with the goals of Our Climate Future — the City’s comprehensive plan for reducing emissions and improving quality of life — community solar provides an opportunity for more people to access clean, renewable energy regardless of their housing type, ownership status or rooftop conditions.
By participating, residents help:
Community solar is a critical piece of Fort Collins’ energy vision and journey toward a cleaner, more inclusive energy future.
The central inverter at the site failed in August 2023. As a result, Fort Collins repowered the Riverside Community Solar Project, including major infrastructure improvements to increase performance and reliability:
These changes significantly improve Riverside's long-term energy yield and reduce single points of failure.
Ownership: Participants own individual solar panels in the Riverside array. The City manages the infrastructure but does not own customer panels.
Eligibility: Participation is limited to Fort Collins Utilities residential electric customers.
Relocation Scenarios:
No Buyback: Fort Collins Utilities does not purchase panels from participants.
New Participants: The program is currently fully subscribed. If you wish to join our waitlist, email us at riversidesolar@fortcollins.gov.
Credit Mechanism: Panel owners receive monthly bill credits based on their panel’s energy output.
Time-of-Day (TOD) Rates:
Learn more about TOD Rates
Solar Output Generates Credits: Highest production tends to occur in the cooler month of May, near the summer solstice. When panels generate less energy (e.g., due to weather, seasonal cycles, or maintenance), bill credits will decrease.
To support long-term reliability, all panel owners contribute to an Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Fund that covers:
This is funded by the solar panel owners by monthly contributions withheld from their credits.
In 2024, City Council approved a $250,000 allocation from the 2050 Tax to support Riverside’s inverter replacement. This one-time funding allocation approval ensured Riverside continued producing clean energy without unexpected costs falling on individual participants since the central inverter failed.
Fort Collins Utilities maintains a property insurance policy for the entire solar site.
Important: Bill credits are tied strictly to actual energy generation. No retroactive credits or reimbursements are issued for lost output due to system downtime.
For transfer inquiries, contact us at riversidesolar@fortcollins.gov.
Including both rooftop and Community Solar, you can benefit from a total of either 12 kilowatts-Direct Current (DC) or a combined total of generation that produces no more than 200% of your average annual energy load (based on a 24-month period), whichever is more beneficial to you. Again, the sizing includes all dedicated generation sources that benefit your electric account.
For solar systems that are not owned by the property owner, such as leased systems, maximum solar system sizing is limited to 120% of intended renewable energy offset or 7.2 kilowatts-DC, including all sources of generation.
Battery storage sizing is not constrained by this policy.
Similar to owning a solar array on your own property, owning Community Solar panels exposes you to the risks of equipment failure and loss of production. This includes the possibility that some portion of the array or all of the array may be out of service for some duration of time. While solar panels are generally known to be durable and capable of producing energy for decades, the inverter(s) and other equipment at the site may fail or need to be replaced over time so that energy generated by the solar array can be delivered to the grid. Collectively, the owners of panels at the Project bear these risks and the financial liability of paying for operating costs, maintenance and the ultimate decommissioning of the Project at the end of its useful life.
As the Project's manager and owner, Utilities maintains the Operations and Maintenance Fund to help cover these costs. However, there is no way to mitigate the risk of the lost value of generation when the Project is not operating at its full potential.
The City of Fort Collins holds an insurance policy that covers potential damage to all assets, including customer-owned solar panels. This lowers risk to the City and customer-owners but does not completely absorb all risk of physical damage.
Under some circumstances of extreme damage to the Project, or successive damaging events to the Project, it could be discontinued at the direction of City Council.
Finally, rate structures and the rates for both electric service and energy returned to the grid from the Project will change over the course of time, in accordance with City Code subject to approval by City Council.
Enter the number of panels you own in the array to estimate your generation and credit for the current billing period. To see a summary of historical data up to the present, change the month and year selection. The Riverside Solar Array began producing energy in August of 2015.
Percent of Array Owned:
riversidesolar@fortcollins.gov