Ohio community solar bill has waited 223 days in Senate committee since passing the House 77 to 8

Ohio community solar bill would create a capped pilot program

The Ohio community solar bill moving through the state legislature is House Bill 303, which would let a household or business that cannot put solar panels on its own roof buy a share of a community energy facility built somewhere else and get a credit on its electric bill for the power it sends to the grid. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, the state agency that regulates electric utilities, would run a pilot program capped at 1,500 megawatts statewide, and the bill own text lets only the general assembly raise that cap later, not the commission itself.

Representative Sharon A. Ray and Representative James M. Hoops introduced the bill in the House on May 27, 2025. The House passed it on November 19, 2025, by a vote of 77 to 8, and the Senate referred it to its own Energy Committee on February 11, 2026, where it has sat for 223 days with no further recorded action, a count from that referral date to September 22, 2026, according to the Ohio Legislature own status record.

What a community energy facility can look like

Each year, the commission must certify 250 megawatts of community energy facilities on the program standard track, until 1,000 megawatts are certified. A separate 500 megawatts is reserved only for facilities built on what the bill calls a distressed site, or on a commercial or public sector rooftop.

A single facility is capped at 10 megawatts of generating capacity, doubling to 20 megawatts on a distressed site or a commercial or public sector rooftop. Every facility needs at least 3 subscribers, no 1 subscriber can hold more than 60% of its output, and at least 40% of its capacity must sell in subscriptions of 40 kilowatts or less, keeping ownership spread across many small subscribers instead of 1 large buyer. The utility serving the area must publish or update its bill credit tariffs within 9 months of the law taking effect, and the commission must review the whole pilot 48 months after adopting its rules.

Why farmers and solar advocates back the bill

Solar advocates who support the bill say community solar can add power to the grid faster than a large power plant.

Community solar is just way faster getting these electrons onto the grid.

Roger Sikes, Campaigner, Solar United Neighbors. Source 4.

Farmers who could host a facility say the bill matters for a different reason, the cost of electricity itself.

We need to bring costs down across the board.

Steve Mondak, Farmer in Columbiana County who supports the bill. Source 4.

Who is fighting the bill, and how long it has waited

House Bill 303 has a Senate companion, Senate Bill 231, sponsored by Senator Mark Romanchuk and Senator Kent Smith and introduced July 7, 2025. It was referred to the same Senate Energy Committee on October 1, 2025, and has sat there for 356 days with no further recorded action, longer than the House bill it mirrors.

Ohio monopoly electric utilities, including AEP Ohio, oppose the bill, along with a utility industry group, according to Ohio Capital Journal. Maureen Willis, the Ohio Consumers Counsel, the state official who represents residential utility customers, raised concerns in committee testimony that costs could fall on customers who do not subscribe to a facility.

Ohio bill sits inside a bigger national wave

Ohio is not alone. States took 253 total actions on distributed solar policy in the first quarter of 2026, across 44 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center. Of those actions, 46 addressed community solar policy, behind net metering, 61 actions, and interconnection rules, the rules that govern how a small facility connects to the grid, 51 actions.

As of the research access date, Ohio remains a state with no community solar program in law at all.