An elderly Kansas woman was sold an expensive solar system for her trailer house and promised she would “no longer have an electric bill.” When the bill kept arriving, the debt made it harder to sell her home, according to testimony filed by Kansas electric cooperatives. Republican committee chairman Leo Delperdang helped turn cases like hers into a law that forces the sales pitch onto paper.
House Bill 2149 answers that kind of sales pitch with a rule simple enough for a kitchen table: disclose the equipment, the useful life, the warranties, the expected output, the liens and the contract terms before asking a customer to sign. Delperdang said the goals were stopping predatory sales, protecting reputable installers and preserving grid reliability in the committee’s final-action record. The official law took effect May 1, 2025.
The legislative summary requires distributed-energy retailers to register with the Secretary of State and remain in good standing. A customer must wait at least one calendar day after receiving the disclosure before signing. If the required information is missing, the contract can be “null and void,” and each violation can carry a civil penalty of up to $10,000.
The law targets the fog around the purchase, not solar itself. A homeowner still chooses the installer, financing and system, but the seller has to put the promises on paper before the family takes on years of payments.
The utilities fought back. Pioneer Electric, Southern Pioneer and other Sunflower distribution members filed opposition testimony, arguing that raising the parallel-generation purchase cap from 4% to 10% could shift costs to other ratepayers. The utilities asked the committee to “refrain from advancing the bill.” Kansas lawmakers advanced consumer protection anyway.
The cooperatives’ own testimony described the customers most exposed to confusing promises: elderly and non-English-speaking customers. Utilities can worry about cost shifting while a homeowner still gets a contract that tells the truth before the debt begins.
HB 2149 also requires utilities, upon request, to provide interconnection rules and current and historic compensation information, including the rate paid per kilowatt-hour for at least five years. The Attorney General’s standard-form group was created in response to the law, while the Kansas Corporation Commission gives customers a place to ask questions or file complaints.
The law increases capacity available for certain parallel-generation arrangements. It gives customer-owned generation more room and customers more information, but it does not make every system profitable or erase utility rules.
HB 2149 is enacted law. The one-day delay, registration requirement, disclosure list and penalties are now the rules Kansas retailers must follow.
Delperdang and the GOP-led Legislature made the Republican principle concrete: the rules should be legible and dishonest paperwork should have consequences. Kansas Republicans put a paper trail between the salesman’s promise and the homeowner’s debt. If a deal cannot survive a day of reading, it should not survive a signature.