Half of Americans can’t install solar panels.

Here’s how they can plug into the sun.

Advice by Michael J. Coren, Cli­mate Advice Colum­nist, The Wash­ing­ton Post

Octo­ber 10, 2023 

(for the orig­i­nal in The Wash­ing­ton Post, click here.)

https://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​c​l​i​m​a​t​e​-​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​/​2​0​2​3​/​1​0​/​1​0​/​c​o​m​m​u​n​i​t​y​-​s​o​l​a​r​-​r​e​n​t​e​r​s​-​a​p​a​r​t​m​e​n​t​s​-​d​i​s​c​o​u​n​t​e​d​-​e​l​e​c​t​r​i​c​i​ty/

No roof, no solar power.

That has been the dispir­it­ing equa­tion shut­ting out rough­ly half of all Amer­i­cans from plug­ging into the sun.

But sign­ing up for solar soon might be as easy as sub­scrib­ing to Net­flix. Scores of new small solar farms that sell clean, local elec­tric­i­ty direct­ly to cus­tomers are pop­ping up. The set­up, dubbed “com­mu­ni­ty solar,” is designed to bring solar pow­er to peo­ple who don’t own their own homes or can’t install pan­els — often at prices below retail elec­tric­i­ty rates.

Clean elec­tric­i­ty for less mon­ey seems a bit too good to be true. But it reflects a new real­i­ty: Solar ener­gy prices are falling as pri­vate and pub­lic mon­ey, and new laws, are fuel­ing a mas­sive expan­sion of small-scale com­mu­ni­ty solar projects.

 Find­ing a sub­scrip­tion to one, how­ev­er, can feel like try­ing to score Tay­lor Swift tick­ets: They’re on sale, but only a lucky few can buy them. At least 22 states have passed leg­is­la­tion encour­ag­ing inde­pen­dent com­mu­ni­ty solar projects, but devel­op­ers are just begin­ning to expand.Most exist­ing projects are booked.

At the moment, com­mu­ni­ty solar projects in the Unit­ed States gen­er­ate enough elec­tric­i­ty to pow­er about 918,000 homes — less than 1 per­cent of total house­holds, accord­ing to the Solar Ener­gy Indus­tries Asso­ci­a­tion, a non­prof­it trade group.

But as more states join, and the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s “Solar for All” pro­gram pours bil­lions into fed­er­al solar pow­er grants, more Amer­i­cans will get the chance.

Should you take it? I took a look.

What is com­mu­ni­ty solar?

While projects exist in most states, they are high­ly con­cen­trat­ed: More than half are in Mass­a­chu­setts, Min­neso­ta and New York. These might be on a con­do roof, or on open land like the 10-MW Fres­no com­mu­ni­ty solar farm, on a city-owned plot sur­round­ed by agri­cul­tur­al land. Most are small: 2 megawatts of capac­i­ty on aver­age, about enough to pow­er 200 to 400 homes.

Devel­op­ers tend to finance their projects through investors or banks, and sign up cus­tomers dur­ing con­struc­tion. If there are projects in your utility’s ser­vice area, you can sub­scribe to elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed by a cer­tain share of the project’s solar panels.

The elec­trons that ulti­mate­ly flow into your home aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly from your pan­el. They are fed into the local grid, which pow­ers house­holds through­out your ser­vice area. Most allow sub­scribers to start or can­cel their solar sub­scrip­tion at any time, or some­times with a few months’ notice. The renew­able ener­gy mar­ket­place Ener­gySage and the non­prof­it Solar Unit­ed Neigh­bors con­nect cus­tomers to com­mu­ni­ty solar projects in their region.

Peo­ple gen­er­al­ly receive month­ly cred­its for elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced by their share of solar pan­els. These are sub­tract­ed from their total elec­tric­i­ty bill or cred­it­ed on future bills. If cus­tomers pro­duce more than they con­sume, those cred­its roll over. If they pro­duce less, cus­tomers pay the dif­fer­ence. Sub­scribers on aver­age save about 10 per­cent on their util­i­ty bill (the range is 5 per­cent to 15 per­cent).

These eco­nom­ics are pro­pelling the indus­try to record heights. Between 2016 and 2019, com­mu­ni­ty solar capac­i­ty more than quadru­pled to 1.4 gigawatts. By the end of this year, ener­gy research firm Wood Macken­zie esti­mates, there will be 6 GW of com­mu­ni­ty solar. And the Ener­gy Depart­ment wants to see com­mu­ni­ty solar reach 5 mil­lion house­holds by 2025.

“The eco­nom­ics are strong­ly on the side of doing this,” says Dan Kam­men, an ener­gy pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley. “It’s now cheap­er to build new solar than to oper­ate old fos­sil [fuel plants]. … We’re at the take­off point.”

Who should get it?

Com­mu­ni­ty solar, also called “solar for renters,” is for any­one. But if you’re a home­own­er, it won’t max­i­mize your savings.

On aver­age, sav­ings from com­mu­ni­ty solar amount to about $100 per year for the aver­age ratepay­er. Rooftop solar arrays may save home­own­ers more than $1,000 annu­al­ly, esti­mates EnergySage.

But it brings oth­er advan­tages. It’s a sub­scrip­tion you can walk away from at any time with no upfront invest­ment. And your fixed rate or dis­count off pre­vail­ing elec­tric rates is usu­al­ly locked in for at least a decade. Res­i­den­tial elec­tric­i­ty rates, mean­while, have jumped about 17 per­cent since 2018.

The biggest ben­e­fit may be expand­ing access to clean ener­gy to the rough­ly half of U.S. con­sumers and busi­ness­es not able to install their own solar pan­els. “The great promise of com­mu­ni­ty solar is it allows every­one to be part of the ener­gy tran­si­tion,” says Bran­don Smith­wood of Dimen­sion Renew­able Ener­gy, a com­pa­ny that has financed more than 1,000 MW of solar projects, “and not feel they’re being left behind.”

To get the best terms, say project devel­op­ers and non­prof­it groups, you should look for con­tracts that uphold a few key terms:

• Get a dis­count­ed elec­tric­i­ty rate: Com­mu­ni­ty solar projects tend to offer 5 per­cent to 15 per­cent off pre­vail­ing elec­tric­i­ty rates.
• Ensure you can can­cel any time: Sell­ers should allow you to can­cel your sub­scrip­tion imme­di­ate­ly or with­in a few months to final­ize cred­its on your bill.
• Avoid can­cel­la­tion fees: Choose a plan that doesn’t force you to pay if you want to end your subscription.
• Source close to your home: Ide­al­ly, projects should be with­in 10 or 15 miles of where you live, says Jeff Cramer, CEO of the Coali­tion for Com­mu­ni­ty Solar Access. This ensures that you decar­bonize your local grid.

For mil­lions of peo­ple liv­ing in places with abun­dant com­mu­ni­ty solar such as Min­neso­ta, Col­orado, New York and Mass­a­chu­setts, find­ing projects is rel­a­tive­ly easy.

But I live in Cal­i­for­nia, where the mar­ket has stag­nat­ed amid unfa­vor­able poli­cies and fierce oppo­si­tion from util­i­ties. While that may change — Cal­i­for­nia, like many oth­er states, is poised to enact poli­ciesenabling more com­mu­ni­ty solar — I need to buy elec­tric­i­ty now.

I still have options — they’re just not as attrac­tive. Green pow­er plans, or retail elec­tric­i­ty plans sold by third par­ties in about 20 states, are often prici­er, and most don’t finance new renew­ables direct­ly since they often just buy renew­able ener­gy cred­its from exist­ing projects.

Com­mu­ni­ty choice aggre­ga­tion is anoth­er one. Cities or local gov­ern­ments buy pow­er inde­pen­dent­ly for local res­i­dents and busi­ness­es, and rely on util­i­ties to dis­trib­ute the elec­tric­i­ty, which is often clean­er than the stan­dard mix. CCA can be less expen­sive, but not always. It served about 5 mil­lion cus­tomers in 10 states in 2020, accord­ing to the EPA.