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]
- Clean Energy States Alliance offers this new resource: Expanding Access to Solar for Low-to-Moderate Income Households and Communities: Lessons Learned for State Agencies (April 2021)
- Coalition for Community Solar Access is a national Coalition of businesses and non-profits working to expand customer choice and access to solar for all American households and businesses through community solar.
- Community Solar Value Project -- Funded by U.S. Department of Energy. This project is focused on how to improve opportunities for community solar and help make projects most cost effective for all participants.
- Institute for Local Self-Reliance --
- National Community Solar Partnership -- The U.S. Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory have established an open community Internet platform, called the National Community Solar Partnership. Started in 2019, the platform has over 900 "group members" as of January 2022. This platform is an open system for information sharing and learning about Community Solar. US DOE and NCSP have announced a target for community solar to serve at least 5 million U.S. households and produce at least $1 billion in utility bill savings by 2025. News Release
- North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center publishes quarterly reports of solar energy policy in the U.S., called the 50 States of Solar. See https://nccleantech.ncsu.edu/the-50-states-reports/.
- Sharing the Sun -- U.S. Community Solar Data. National Renewable Energy Laboratory is collaborating with the University of Minnesota to build the national community solar database. This database represents a list of community solar projects identified through various sources as of Dec 2020.
- Cite: Heeter, Jenny; Xu, Kaifeng; Chan, Gabriel, (2021), Sharing the Sun Community Solar Project Data (Dec 2020, Revision). National Renewable Energy Laboratory. https://data.nrel.gov/submissions/167
- Solar Energy Industries Association Community Solar [Web page]
- Solstice -- "Organizing, educating, and innovating to make solar accessible for every American." Solstice.us and https://solstice.us/how-community-solar-works/
- U.S. Department of Energy, Community Solar Basics [Web page]
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
- Cooperative Energy Futures (Minnesota). See also https://ilsr.org/peoples-solar-energy-fund-ler-127/
See also[edit | edit source]
- Community energy USA
- Community solar financing mechanisms
- Community solar literature review
- Geospacial Energy Mapper -- A free-to-use Geographic Information System database for the U.S., developed by the U.S. Department of Energy research laboratory consortium. This mapping software includes about 300 different data layers. The mapping can help to analyzing opportunities for energy systems development, including both fossil fuel and renewable energy systems.
