Community Solar Program Design Models

Is it all hype? Here’s what the data says about community solar.

Community solar (also known as “shared solar”) has been a hot topic for years; but, there has been little public data available on the community solar market’s development – leaving industry players guessing – until now. This report – funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office – provides essential facts and figures regarding generating capacity, subscription rates, and other performance metrics for the community solar market.

Key insights from eight years of community solar market data.

Since 2010, the Smart Electric Power Alliance has tracked every launched and publicly announced community solar program in the United States, creating one of the nation’s most extensive repositories of community solar data. In this report, we’re making the key takeaways from this vast data set available to the public for free.

With the information in this report, you will discover:

• how state-level shared solar policies impact community solar market development
• how quickly the community solar market has grown in the last 10 years
• typical community solar program subscription rates based on several factors
• which kinds of community solar programs are gaining traction with cooperative v. public power v. investor-owned utilities
• how investor-owned utilities are coupling shared solar with other offerings to create next-generation customer programs
• key insights for low-income community programs
• how to use the Community Solar Decision Tree process to streamline program attribute design process

That’s just a partial list of what you’ll gain with this report. If you are interested in speaking to one of our community solar program experts, please reach out to our advisory services team.