“Imagine walking into a solar company’s office with 50 or 100 of your neighbors and saying, ‘We all want to get community solar. What kind of deal can you give us?’”
~ Solar United Neighbors (SUN).
Given the opportunity, most homeowners would opt to go solar. But we aren’t given the opportunities. Solar is a considerable investment for individual homeowners. If no one else in your neighborhood has solar, starting the trend is hard. And how are renters supposed to go solar?
Luckily, there is a way to make a positive impact despite the obstacles: community solar!
What is Community Solar?
Community solar is when a community takes collective action to solarize their region, creating a solar co-op. Essentially, it is neighbors helping each other go solar, usually generating a group discount.
How Does It Work?
It’s not as simple as calling up all your neighbors. There are many moving parts, but that’s where nonprofits come in. Solar United Neighbors (SUN), for example, manages many of the intricacies.
It starts with a sponsored area, in our case, a Hampton Roads Neighborhood. The nonprofit organizers designate an area to focus on. SUN holds informational community sessions where residents can ask questions. They explain how this whole co-op thing works, options for financing, and what to expect after going solar. SUN also posts seminars on its website.
At this phase, SUN needs to get enough residents on board to reach their threshold (30 -100 members). Once successful, SUN solicits proposals from reputable, trusted solar installers. The bidding is competitive, encouraging that group discount, but they are not looking for the cheapest. SUN tightly vets installers on everything from warranties to customer satisfaction.
The finalists are then presented to a board of co-op members. These are the residents who will actually receive the installations, so they get the final say. We won a proposal request from the SUN-organized Hampton Roads Co-op. Not to toot our own horn, but we are very proud of our work in that community.
From there, it’s like any other residential installation. We schedule site visits with each co-op member, design individualized plans, present them to homeowners, and install them. However, our work isn’t done there. We provide continuous customer support for as long as the co-op exists.
It is important to note that while co-ops use group purchasing powers, the members enjoy individual ownership of their individual solar system.
What Are The Benefits of Community Solar?
“So a neighborhood gets a group discount— big deal. What else does solar offer my community?”
Community solar projects provide a whole host of benefits! They decrease energy and heating bills, decrease dependency on public utilities, reduce pollution, support grid resilience, and stimulate economic growth.
We all know solar helps us go green, but that feels abstract. Solar energy provides tangible improvements to our public health and the environment. Traditional power plants like coal require enormous amounts of water. Coal washing, removing the impurities from coal, can contaminate that water. Conventional power production involves heating water. When that heated water is discharged back into natural bodies, it harms those ecosystems. Finally, pollutants from burning coal do not stay in the air— they come back to contaminate water sources.
However, solar energy does not require water! Research even shows that communities with community solar experience a 6% reduction in emergency room visits for respiratory problems. Okay, 6% does not sound like a lot. But for those with existing respiratory health issues, that 6% could make the difference between life and death.
Solar projects can stimulate the economy by creating jobs. However, the number of jobs they make depends on their size. When people can spend less on utilities, they can spend more on, well, anything! More spending power leads to economic growth.
Finally, community solar projects are also infrastructure projects. These unique infrastructure projects encourage new developments by bolstering great resilience.
How Does Community Solar Support Grid Resilience?
Our current electrical infrastructure is vulnerable due to its age and extreme weather events caused by climate change. In 2021, the US Department of Energy reported an increase in the duration of power outages. From 2013 to 2016, the average power outage due to weather only lasted 3 to 4 hours. However, in 2021, that jumped to a 7-hour average. This increase in power outrage duration reflects an increased difficulty in maintaining and repairing our electrical infrastructure.
Grid resilience describes a power system’s ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and rapidly recover from operational disruption. Community solar can significantly support the larger grid through various means.
Community solar democratizes power production, mitigating the strain on one centralized, vulnerable power plant. This democratization of power contributes to microgrids. These localized grids can operate independently during main grid disruptions. Virginia started implementing microgrids to alleviate the growing strain on its grid.
Microgrids can work without solar power, but they uniquely complement each other. Utility-scale solar projects can easily be integrated into microgrids. They can even supply power to communities during outages when paired with battery storage. As we learned in a previous blog, battery capabilities will continue to improve.
Furthermore, utility-scale solar can provide ancillary services to the larger grid— accessory services that maintain stability and prevent disruptions. These are actions like frequency regulation and voltage supported through solar’s advanced inverters.
Conclusion
Despite significant investments, grid operators are struggling to update and maintain our aging infrastructure. Dominion Energy reported difficulties in meeting the rapidly growing demand for Virginia’s new developments. While our grid can meet most of our needs, it will only continue to age.
Community solar offers many opportunities to improve our immediate community and support our wider region. By partnering with solar-focused nonprofits like SUN and Solarize Virginia, you, too, can make a difference. Since its start in 2014, Solarize Virginia has helped over 1,410 solar power system installations, generating more than 12.7 megawatts of solar capacity!
If you want to make your community a better, greener place, we recommend reaching out to SUN. We can’t promise the entire community solar process will be easy. But we’ve learned from experience that it is well worth it. For all your other solar needs, drop us a line.
