2025 Iowa Legislative Session

Iowa's 2025 legislative session has the opportunity to address several key policies that impact energy customers across Iowa. CEDI provides downloadable one-page FACT SHEETS on each topic (below). Please share widely.

LIVE BILLS:

HF834 (renumbered from HSB123) & SF 585 Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) - DOWNLOAD FACT SHEET (PDF)

HF834 is the Governor’s omnibus energy bill. It includes many elements of concern, especially a very weak IRP section that provides a blank check to monopoly utility shareholders at the expense of ratepayers.

Integrated Resource Planning (covering power generation and transmission) and Integrated Distribution Planning (covering the distribution system) should be legislatively required of lowa's investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs), Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy. IRP was the central recommendation of a 2023 study commissioned by the Iowa Legislature and performed by London Economics International. The final report of this study named IRP as one of the most important reforms to Iowa ratemaking to assist regulators in ensuring ratepayers are getting affordable energy and a reliable grid.

  • By forecasting energy needs accurately, utilities can prevent overbuilding power plants or infrastructure, reducing unnecessary costs that otherwise will be passed on to ratepayers. Pay for only what we need.
  • Iowa is one of only five states in the country without an IRP or requiring long-term utility planning.
  • Proven data will determine the most cost-effective and efficient energy supply.
  • An IRP creates transparency and accountability for customers of monopoly utilities.
  • By using a mix of energy resources to balance loads, good IRP prevents blackouts.

CRITICAL Improvements to Communicate to Legislators:

  • IRP must be conducted as a contested docket in order to maximize transparency, because that is how ratepayers have a voice in the process.
  • IRP needs to be a process that sets the foundation for other rate-related dockets such as “advanced ratemaking principles” and regular rate dockets. As such, it needs to be mandatory and set on a regular 3-year cycle. Currently the House bill makes it an optional, discretionary, irregular process, which would be entirely ineffective.
  • IRP needs to be comprehensive in scope, including all modeling/predictive capabilities of the utility for defining future needs, and all potential resource solutions at all levels - transmission, generation, and distribution system assets.

READ MORE

 

HF404 Community Solar - DOWNLOAD FACT SHEET (PDF)

HF404 aims to expand access to solar energy, enhance consumer choice, and promote investment in renewable energy through shared community solar projects in the service territories of Alliant Energy and MidAmerican Energy. This bill introduces a community solar facility program by amending the Iowa Code 2025. The bill does not impact rural electric cooperatives nor municipal electric utilities.

WHY YOUR LEGISLATORS SHOULD SUPPORT THIS BILL:

  • Subscribers receive the immediate benefit of lower electricity bills without the upfront cost of installing solar on the owner's property.
  • No cost for upkeep and repairs.
  • Renters that have an electric meter can subscribe to community solar. 
  • VNM allows businesses or farmers with multiple meters to combine their electric bills and receive lower costs from a single solar installation on one of the properties.

 

SF376 Renewable Energy Siting Reform - DOWNLOAD FACT SHEET (PDF)

SF376, sponsored by Senator Klimesh, amends and clarifies renewable electric power generation siting and provisions. This issue is critically important to Iowa’s ability to encourage the development of renewable electric power generation and the use of renewable electric power to meet local electric needs, as well as the development of transmission capacity to export excess power generated in Iowa.

WHY YOUR LEGISLATORS SHOULD SUPPORT THIS BILL:

  • Requires public meetings and stakeholder engagement.
  • Creates uniform baseline regulations that provide clarity for developers, local governments, and communities.
  • Respects landowners' right to lease their property for solar and wind development.
  • Protects neighbors' rights by setting reasonable setback requirements and addressing potential concerns like noise and shadow flicker for wind turbines.

 

READ "Will Iowa be a failed solar state, or a renewable powerhouse?"

(Opinion to The Des Moines Register)

READ MORE about how Linn County, Iowa, successfully addressed siting policy.

 

POLICY NOT CURRENTLY CONSIDERED

Rate-Payer Funded Energy Efficiency Program Reform - DOWNLOAD FACT SHEET (PDF)

The Iowa Legislature’s own commissioned study (2023) called for energy efficiency program reform as a priority. Reforms should create a stakeholder- (not utility-) driven process for program development, providing ratepayers, communities, the Office of Consumer Advocate, and the Iowa Utilities Commission stronger roles for innovation, and defining program management and implementation options.

 

Additional Energy Issues within the 2025 Iowa Legislative Session - DOWNLOAD FACT SHEET (PDF)

  • Transmission Reform: Right of First Refusal (ROFR)

  • Virtual Net Metering/Community Solar

  • Building Energy Codes Implementation

  • Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)