The Tipmont REMC Community Solar Array.jpg

Community solar definitions vary by program and program type. Most definitions focus on local solar facilities that are shared by multiple community subscribers, who each receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced. The key ideas in most definitions are:

  • The community location for the solar facilities, typically not far from the participating customers and often where subscribers will see the system in their travels around their own community. Many times the community location supports some specific community service needs, too, such as providers of emergency services or entities that provide services to the community.
  • Shared ownership, by lease, direct purchase, or subscription, where participants are offered options, or what are often called shares of a solar system. Shares often range in price from as little as a few hundred dollars to as much as several thousand, and are often described in terms of numbers of solar panels, in Watts (or kilowatts) of production capacity, or in units of energy per month, such as kilowatt-hours (kWh).
  • Shared benefits, where the output of the solar system is shared with all of the participating customers, based on each customer's share of the total production capability.
  • Benefits presented as utility bill credits, so that for tax purposes the benefits do not have to be considered as income that would be subject to income taxes.

Learning the basics[edit | edit source]

U.S. States and Territories Community Solar Legislation[edit | edit source]

So far 24 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation about community solar. Details are available from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE), which is produced by the North Carolina State University Clean Energy Technology Center. See: https://nccleantech.ncsu.edu/?s=Community+Solar

  • California
  • District of Columbia
  • Hawaii
  • Illinois
  • Massachusetts
  • New Mexico Community Solar Act. New Mexico became the 21st State to pass community solar legislation, enacted March 18, 2021. New Mexico Senate Bill 84, https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?chamber=S&legtype=B&legno=84&year=21
    • The New Mexico Act provides that the Public Regulation Commission shall establish rules for implementing community solar, and that at least "thirty percent of electricity produced from each community solar facility [shall] be reserved for low-income customers and low-income service organizations. The commission shall issue guidelines to ensure the carve-out is achieved each year and develop a list of low-income service organizations and programs that may pre-qualify low-income customers...." (Section 7(B)(3), on p. 10).
  • Washington

Business models[edit | edit source]

There are many different successful models already for Community Solar projects. This section will describe the different models concisely, and link to additional information about them. Included will be differences based on:

  • system ownership,
  • financing mechanisms, and
  • off-takers for the solar energy.

For the moment, this is a placeholder inviting others to include model types and provide links to related information.

  • Utility programs in states with laws or rules governing community solar
    • investor owned utilities
    • municipal utilities
    • cooperative (member-owned) utilities
  • Utility programs in states with no establishing community solar law or rules, also known as "voluntary" utilty programs
    • investor owned utilities
    • municipal utilities
    • cooperative (member-owned) utilities
  • Project developer led programs
  • NGO-led programs
  • Community solar cooperative business models

See also[edit | edit source]

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Authors Tom Stanton
License CC-BY-SA-4.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 7 pages link here
Impact 929 page views
Created March 18, 2021 by Joshua M. Pearce
Modified January 22, 2024 by StandardWikitext bot
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