United Power Solar and Battery Pilot: Net Metering, Banking and 4 to 8 PM Dispatch

If you are a United Power member thinking about solar, here is the short version: United Power solar net metering lets you bank the extra energy your panels produce, carry that credit forward month to month, and settle up once a year each March at a wholesale or avoided cost rate. United Power also allows generously sized systems, up to 200% of your annual usage, and runs a battery pilot that dispatches stored energy on weekday evenings. Below we break down exactly how each piece works so you can size and design a system that fits the co-op rules rather than fighting them.

Who United Power serves

United Power is a member-owned electric cooperative based in Brighton, serving a large stretch of the northern Front Range including communities like Mead, Firestone, and the fast growing corridor along I-25 north of Denver. As a co-op, United Power sets its own interconnection and net metering terms, which differ from what investor owned utilities like Xcel offer. That is the single most important thing to understand: your neighbor two towns over may have completely different rules. The figures here are current as of June 2026, and you should always confirm the latest terms directly with United Power before you sign a contract.

How United Power net metering and banking work

United Power uses a net metering arrangement with a banking feature. When your solar system produces more electricity than your home uses in a given billing period, the surplus is exported to the grid and credited to your account as banked kilowatt hours. In months when you use more than you produce, such as the short days of December and January, you draw down that bank.

The key detail is the annual settlement. Rather than paying you out every month for excess generation, United Power lets the credits ride through the year and then settles any remaining balance once annually in March. At that settlement, leftover banked energy is paid at a wholesale or avoided cost rate, which is meaningfully lower than the full retail rate you pay for power you buy. If you are new to the mechanics of crediting and rollover, our plain English explainer on how net metering works walks through the concepts before you apply.

What this means in practice:

• Energy you offset directly, by using your own solar as it is produced or drawing down banked credits against retail usage, is worth the most.
• Energy that piles up as a year end surplus and gets cashed out in March is worth less, because it settles at the lower avoided cost rate.
• The goal of good system design is to match production to consumption so that as little energy as possible is left stranded at the March true up.

The 200% sizing cap and why it matters

United Power permits residential solar systems sized up to 200% of your historical annual electricity usage. That is a generous ceiling compared with many Colorado utilities, where caps of 100% to 120% of usage are common. A higher cap gives you real flexibility.

That headroom is especially useful if you expect your electricity use to climb. Households adding an electric vehicle, a heat pump, central air conditioning, or planning a future addition can size today for tomorrow rather than coming back to add panels later. Even so, sizing to the full 200% is not automatically the right move. Because year end surplus settles at the lower avoided cost rate, building a system far larger than you will actually consume means a chunk of your production gets paid out at wholesale value. We generally help members size to cover their real projected load with a sensible margin, not simply to the maximum the cap allows.

The United Power battery pilot and 4 to 8 PM dispatch

United Power runs a battery pilot program, and it is one of the more interesting reasons to pair storage with solar in this territory. Under the pilot, enrolled home batteries are dispatched on weekday evenings during a 4 to 8 PM window, discharging to roughly 70% depth. In plain terms, the co-op calls on your battery to push energy back during the late afternoon and early evening hours when grid demand and costs peak.

This matters for two reasons. First, the evening peak is exactly when solar production is falling off, so a battery fills the gap between your panels going quiet and your household winding down for the night. Second, programs that aggregate many home batteries to support the grid are a growing source of value for solar owners across the state. The United Power pilot is part of that broader trend, which we cover in our guide to virtual power plants in Colorado and how home batteries can earn their keep.

A few practical points on the battery side:

• A battery lets you store midday solar and use it during the evening, which is valuable since exported surplus ultimately settles at avoided cost.
• Participating in a dispatch program means the utility controls a portion of your battery during set windows, so you want a battery and inverter sized to still cover your own backup needs.
• Battery program terms and incentives change, so confirm the current pilot details and enrollment requirements with United Power before you count on them.

If you are weighing whether storage makes sense for your situation, our home battery storage guide covers sizing, backup versus self consumption, and how dispatch programs affect the math.

Designing a system that fits United Power rules

Put the pieces together and a smart approach in United Power territory looks like this. Size your array to cover your genuine annual usage plus reasonable future load, staying comfortably within the 200% cap. Lean on the banking feature to carry summer surplus through the winter, and aim to minimize the leftover balance that settles at avoided cost in March. If your goals include resilience during outages or capturing more value from evening hours, add a battery and consider the dispatch pilot.

Every interconnection also involves the practical work of the application, the agreement, the meter swap, and inspection. As a Colorado solar installer working across the Front Range, ProGreen Solar handles the United Power paperwork as part of the project so the process is not on your shoulders. If you live a bit farther north and are served by a different cooperative, the rules shift again, and our guide to Poudre Valley REA solar shows just how much terms can vary co-op to co-op.

Confirm the current terms before you commit

Cooperative rates and programs are updated periodically, and the battery pilot in particular is exactly the kind of offering that can change as it moves out of a pilot phase. Treat the figures here as a current snapshot and verify the latest net metering terms, sizing limits, settlement rate, and battery program details directly with United Power before you finalize a design or sign anything.

If you would like a system sized specifically to your United Power account and usage history, we are happy to model it out. Visit our residential solar page to see how ProGreen approaches Front Range homes, and we will help you turn the co-op rules into a system that actually pencils out for your household.

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