Solar in Denver, Colorado

Every address in the City and County of Denver is served by Xcel Energy. Since November 1, 2025, Xcel’s residential time-of-use plan prices electricity highest from 5 to 9 pm on non-holiday weekdays, all year, at roughly 2.7 times the off-peak price. Smart-meter homes are placed on it by default and can opt out to a flat rate.

That timing matters for solar. Panels on a Denver roof produce most of their energy between late morning and mid-afternoon, and by 5 pm in winter they’re nearly done for the day. Your net metering credits still roll forward month to month, but the hours you most want to avoid buying from the grid are exactly the hours solar is weakest. That’s why we look hard at a battery, or at shifting loads like EV charging and laundry, for Denver homes on time-of-use.

Denver is one of only five Colorado jurisdictions using SolarAPP+ for full automated plan review, alongside Wheat Ridge, Bennett, Alamosa County and Gilpin County. A standard rooftop system that fits the SolarAPP+ rules can be approved without waiting in a human plan-review queue, which removes one of the slower steps in most metro cities.

Automated approval doesn’t skip the inspection, and it doesn’t skip Xcel’s interconnection process, which runs on its own timeline. Homes in designated landmark or historic districts can also face design review before anything goes on a street-facing roof. We check that before we design, not after.

Denver’s franchise agreement with Xcel expires at the end of 2026, and a new 20-year franchise is on the November 3, 2026 ballot. As reported, the proposed agreement includes about $2 million a year for heat-pump and EV programs, a 1% undergrounding provision, and a 3% franchise fee.

A franchise doesn’t change your net metering rules or who delivers your power — Xcel serves Denver either way in the near term. We mention it because it affects what city-linked programs may exist in future years. It’s a civic question for voters; we don’t take a side on it here.

Denver’s Climate Action Rebates (CARe) program has offered rebates for solar, batteries and heat pumps in the past, with conditions that changed over time. As of September 2026 we could not confirm which CARe rebates are currently open, so we don’t count any city rebate in our Denver estimates. Check the city’s current program page, or ask us and we’ll look with you.

Income-qualified homeowners should also contact Denver’s Energy Resource Center, which runs weatherization and efficiency help. Doing insulation and air sealing before sizing solar can shrink the system you need.

The May 8, 2017 hailstorm is still the benchmark: roughly $2.3 billion in insured losses and the costliest in Colorado history, by industry estimates. Modern certified panels are tested against 25 mm ice balls at about 23 meters per second, and they usually outlast the shingles around them — but a Denver roof near the end of its life is a real reason to reroof before or with solar, since we don’t do remove-and-reinstall later.

Denver’s older neighborhoods have mature street trees and a mix of pitched roofs, dormers and small roof planes, while many postwar ranch homes have long, simple roofs that are easier to work with. The honest limit is shade: a large tree on the south side can cut production enough that solar stops making sense, and we’ll say so.