Community solar power ‘delivers on promises’ for lower-income households

Solar energy users in U.S. communities are 6.1 times more likely to live in multifamily housing, 4.4 times more likely to rent, and earn 23 percent less than rooftop solar buyers, according to a new, peer-reviewed study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

According to Canary Media, the study covered more than 100,000 rooftop solar owners and 75,000 community solar project participants in 11 U.S. states. A total of 4.2 gigawatts of solar were installed.

The results show that “community solar is delivering on its promises,” said lead author Eric O’Shaughnessy, an LBNL affiliate and renewable energy research analyst at Clean Kilowatts. But the research team still found gaps in supply: Communities of color are less likely to adopt community solar, likely because of the way the option is advertised, but also because “in the past, vulnerable households have been scammed by predatory energy salespeople,” Canary Media writes.

The article points to “community-rooted partnerships” in states like Illinois that can help spread the word that community solar is the real deal and can really lower energy bills. With savings of 5% to 20%, “it’s not a scam,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It can save you money.”

The study found that community solar access “proves more equitable than rooftop panels,” the paper reports, but still tends to target households earning slightly more than the state average. But that wasn’t the case in three states — Illinois, New York and Oregon — that had programs aimed at low- and moderate-income households.

In these jurisdictions, “the team found that people who participated in community solar programs not only had lower incomes, but were also more likely to rent and live in multifamily housing than people who adopted community solar but did not participate in these programs. What’s more, program participants in Oregon were more likely to identify as minority households.”