Community Solar Programs and the Democratization of the Energy System
Steven M. Hoffman
Professor and Chair
Department of Political Science
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, Minnesota
and
Angela High-Pippert
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, Minnesota
Simply ask how many subscribers each of these giant arrays has lined up and
you’ll discover just how little “community” there is in these plans. The vast
majority of them are designed only for very large organizations, to the
exclusion of homeowners and small businesses.
Sundial Solar
Comments to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission
April 4, 2015
Introduction
In July of this year, the Obama Administration announced a major “new initiative to
increase access to solar energy for all Americans, in particular low- and moderate- income
communities, while expanding opportunities to join the solar workforce” (White House 2015).
Key components of the initiative included setting a goal to install 300 megawatts (MW) of
renewable energy in federally subsidized housing and providing technical assistance to make it
easier to install; securing commitments from various organizations in more than 20 states to
put in place more than 260 solar energy projects, including projects to help low- and moderateincome communities; using AmeriCorps funding to deploy solar and create jobs in underserved
communities; expanding solar energy education and opportunities for job training; and working
1
with the solar industry to set its own, independent goal of becoming the most diverse sector of
the U.S. energy industry. At the top of the priority list, however, was “launching a National
Community Solar Partnership to unlock access to solar for the nearly 50 percent of households
and businesses that are renters or do not have adequate roof space to install solar systems,
including issuing a guide to support states in developing community solar programs.”1 This was
in addition to “identifying pledges of more than $520 million in independent commitments
from philanthropic and impact investors, states, and cities to advance community solar and
scale up solar and energy efficiency for low- and moderate- income households” (White House
2015).
The Administration’s desire to accelerate the use of solar-generated electricity in the
United States is part of a larger trend in the overall growth of renewable resources based, in
part, on their ability to supplant fossil fuels in the generation system. According to the U.S.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Renewable Electricity Futures Study, for
instance, “electricity supply and demand can be balanced in every hour of the year in each
region with nearly 80 percent electricity from renewable resources, including nearly 50 percent
from variable renewable generation” (Hand 2012). An even more aggressive portrait of a
renewable energy future is offered by Mark Jacobson et al., in their “road maps for each of the
50 United States” which they claim will allow the U.S. to convert its “all-purpose energy systems
(for electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry) to ones powered entirely by wind,
water, and sunlight” (2015).
According to Jacobson and his colleagues, this could be
accomplished “due to the efficiency of electrification and the rest due to end-use energy
efficiency improvements” (2015).
While wind resources are leading the transition in both plans, solar comes in a close
second, a not surprising fact given that, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, solar
energy is the fastest-growing source of renewable generation in the country with increases of
7.5 percent per year projected from 2012 to 2040 (2014, MT-20). In both the NREL and
Jacobson plans, however, solar’s growth is predicated primarily on the development of utilityThe Guide can be found at
http://apps3.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/community_development/community_solar_faq.html
1
2
scale projects, including concentrated solar and/or power tower projects, and solar farms. The
emphasis on ‘big solar’ persists despite the fact that the rapidly declining costs of small-scale
solar systems (Hummel et al. 2013; Pourreza et al. 2013; Shah 2014) could result in some “3.8
million rooftop installations [being] installed on rooftops across the country by 2020, up from
400,000 in 2013” (Union of Concerned Scientists 2015).
The relatively minor role envisioned for small-scale solar is due, in part, to the fact that
only about twenty-five percent of householders own property with the necessary physical
characteristics, i.e., flat or pitched rooftops with the proper exposure and size (Chediak 2015).
Even those with the right sort of roof are often loathe to deal with the variety of ‘hassle factors’
that accompany the installation decision, i.e., worries about system upkeep, changes to physical
infrastructure, dealing with installers, and so on (Hoffman and High-Pippert 2015). Community
solar generally, and shared solar in particular, is an important means of dealing with both of the
concerns.
Shared Solar: Definitions and Status
A shared solar project, also commonly referred to as a ‘solar garden’, is defined by the
Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) as a facility “located in or near the service territory
of an electricity provider where the electricity generated by the facility is credited to the
participants to the facility. A shared renewable energy facility may be located either as a standalone facility . . . or behind the meter of a participating Participant” (2013, 18). The National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) narrows the definition somewhat by limiting shared solar
PV to “include only those systems that allocate the electricity of a jointly owned system, or a
third-party-owned (TPO) system, to offset multiple individual businesses’ or households’
consumption participating in the program” (Feldman et al. 2015, 2). Excluded by this definition
would be installations designed to serve local public or community facilities such as police and
fire stations; joint purchasing initiatives, such as the well-known Solarize programs, that allow
individual homeowners to realize economies of scale through bulk buying practices; and on-site
solar projects that require co-location between the user and the facility, i.e., an apartment
building with an array serving only the tenants residing in that building.
3
While flexible in its design, a shared solar system at a minimum involves three parties: a
developer who builds and owns the array, a utility that agrees to purchase the power generated
by the array, and subscribers who agree to purchase a portion of the array’s output. Other
participants might include the owner of a host site and aggregators who participate in the
identification and solicitation of subscribers.
According to NREL, the number of shared solar programs in the U.S. has grown from one
in 2006 to 41 as of August 2014, with a combined 66 MW of installed capacity in 2014, a
number expected to climb to 181 MW in 2015 and 465 MW by 2020, while spanning some
nineteen states (Jossi 2015).2 The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) and IREC are also
tracking another 16 programs in the planning or proposal stages, which could increase the
market presence of shared solar to 22 states and a maximum program size of at least 1.3 GW
(Feldman 2015, 5-6).
While these trends offer some degree of hope for the future of shared solar, a number
of significant barriers continue to restrain its development, one of the most important being
the tax treatment afforded to a participant, or subscriber, by the federal government. As
Feldman notes, there is a high degree of “uncertainty about the applicability of Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements for registration and disclosure of shared solar
projects. Central to this issue is whether an interest in a shared solar project is a ‘security.’ If it
is, then it is regulated by the SEC (although its offer may qualify for an exemption) and has the
potential to significantly impact the way a shared solar program operates” (2015, vi-vii).
Another point of significance is the availability of federal investment tax credits and
their upcoming expiration date. As noted by a number of interveners in a recent case before
the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MN PUC) (Stoel Rives 2015):
The time frame to build projects before the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) changes
is extremely limited. The ITC decreases from a 30% to 10% of the eligible basis of
the project for any project that is placed in service after December 31, 2016 . . .
The ITC step down after 2016 formally represents the loss of about 20% of a
project’s costs, something the solar industry and its financiers will face for the
first time. To understand the potential effect on project development following
2
The leading states are California, Minnesota, Colorado and Massachusetts, though Minnesota is expected to
soon outstrip all other states by a large margin as a result of its 2013 solar garden legislation (Jossi 2015).
4
such changes, one only need to look to the boom and bust cycles in the wind
industry following the production tax credit’s expiration and renewal over the
past decade.
Also, according to Feldman, “some states limit the class of customers who can participate in a
bill credit mechanism program [while] other states currently do not have regulatory
frameworks in place that explicitly allow alternative bill credit mechanisms, such as [Virtual Net
Metering] . . . Additionally, there are regional legal and regulatory variations that make it
difficult, or costly, to scale up the shared solar model in an efficient manner” (2015, 9).
There are also a whole host of complex technical issues that must be resolved either
before or during the formulation of a shared solar program. Among the more important of
these is the type and value of the tariff available to a subscriber; determining whether and/or
at what level a developer should be compensated for the Renewable Energy
Credits/Certificates (REC) associated with a solar array and the disposition of unsubscribed
RECs; interconnection requirements and payment to utility for interconnection upgrades; the
type and amount of program information required of developers; the type and amount of
program fees/deposits that can be required of developers and the forfeiture of these
fees/deposits; the regulation of contracts between subscribers and developers; and the
appropriate contract length between developer and the subscriber.
Dueling Frames and Minnesota’s Solar Garden Program
Clearly, the creation of a robust shared solar program is complicated and fraught with
opportunities to either delay or derail the implementation process altogether. Missing from
even this extensive recitation of issues, however, is something even more fundamental,
namely, the problem of framing or defining the underlying meaning of a shared solar program
and therefore who should receive the benefits, mainly in the form of the bill credits, associated
with a project.
According to Snow and Benford, a frame is the “production and maintenance of
meaning for constituents, antagonists, and bystanders or observers. This productive work may
involve the amplification and extension of extant meanings, the transformation of old
5
meanings, and the generation of new meanings . . . [framing] is the politics of signification”
(1992, 136). In this regard, a frame serves several functions, including as mode of punctuation,
that is, they encode certain events with meaning; attribution, i.e., they identify responsible
agents and identify potential courses of remedial action; and signification, i.e., they take
discrete events and weave them together into a consistent and unified narrative. A frame,
therefore, will shape how various parties, including advocates, constituents, decision makers,
and the general public “define problems, attribute causes, and evaluate solutions” (Foust and
Murphy 2009, 153). In some cases an especially compelling frame can become a ‘master frame’
into which the themes employed by various organizations have to fit, at least to the extent they
care to be seen as part of ‘the movement’ (Benford 1997).
In the case of shared solar programs two master frames exist. A first master frame is
‘expansion’, measured in two ways, the first being in terms of the solar industry, i.e., the
number of solar panels and supporting material produced by the industry, the number of
installed systems, and the number of jobs supported by the industry, and secondly, by the
amount of solar energy being generated and consumed by households and businesses. A
second master frame is ‘democratization’, within which are at least two subsidiary frames: (1)
economic democracy or making solar available to those households previously excluded from
the market due to factors such as characteristics of property, lack of ownership rights, or as
explicitly stated in the White House program, financial constraints affecting low income and/or
minority households and (2) participatory democracy or engaging individuals in fashioning the
nature of the electricity system and as a consequence strengthening their civic lives as citizens
(Hoffman and High-Pippert 2005).3
3
The democratization frame has long been a part of the discussion surrounding all forms of distributed
generation, beginning with Lovins’ notion of ‘soft energy paths’ (1977). The current central-station, grid-based
system of electricity production and consumption, writes Lovins, requires a good deal from society, including an
autonomous decision making system run by technical elites largely free from the world of democratic citizenship
(1977, 54). In contrast, a ‘soft path’ built with renewable and small scale technologies would mean that “everyone
can get into the act, unimpeded by centralized bureaucracies, and can compete for a market share through
ingenuity and local adaptation” (1977, 50). This theme is echoed by David Morris, who foresees an energy system
where “increased cost and decreased availability of raw materials . . . the extraordinarily rapid development of
new technologies . . . [and] the electronics revolution” would allow cities to become ‘self-reliant’ (1982, 220; see
also Morris 2001) while Scott Ridley argues that community energy systems are likely to be “publicly accountable,
non-discriminatory, non-profit, subject to open meeting and ethics laws, and oriented toward advancing economic
development and the public” (1998).
6
The vital role played by these master frames can be seen in the controversies
surrounding the implementation of Minnesota’s 2013 solar garden initiative, widely considered
one of the nation’s most advanced shared solar programs. The legislation directed Xcel Energy,
the state’s largest electricity provider, to file a proposal for the implementation of the program
by September 30, 2013.4 Following IREC’s and NREL’s lead, a solar garden was defined as a
“facility that generates electricity by means of a ground mounted or roof mounted solar
photovoltaic device whereby subscribers receive a bill credit for the electricity generated in
proportion to the size of their subscription. The solar garden must have a nameplate capacity
of no more than one megawatt” (MDC--DER 2013, 1). The statute required each garden to be
designed so as to offset the energy use of at least five subscribers, with each having no more
than a forty percent interest in the total output generated by the array. Subscribers were
required to be customers of the participating utility and reside in the county in which the solar
garden is located. Finally, the statute required that the utility must purchase all energy
generated by the solar garden at the applicable retail rate (ARR), or the Value of Solar (VOS)
rate once approved by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MN PUC), and provide bill
credits to subscribers for their portion of the energy production (MDC-DER 2013, 1-2).
The initial application pool yielded 427 completed applications worth 431 MWs, a
number later reduced to 409 completed applications delivering some 403 MWs (Xcel, March 3,
2015).5 The overwhelming share of the projects, the largest of which topped out at 40 MW,
were “chained arrays”, that is, a number of 1 MW arrays linked together via various engineered
elements and a common point of interconnection to a distribution network, most of which
were located in either exurban or rural, agricultural areas of the state. In addition, the majority
4
While the statute required only Xcel Energy to create a solar garden program, as will be shown below, a number
of the state’s many cooperative utilities have also created shared solar programs.
5
The 403 MW of completed applications is out of a total of over 900 MW of proposals received by the company as
of the end of June 2015 (Hearings, June 23, 2015 company statements before the MN PUC).
7
of the subscribers were large corporate or nonprofit organizations who were, according to the
utility, looking for a way to ‘hedge’ against future electricity price increases.6
Such a result was seen by the utility as fundamentally contrary to both the law’s intent
and the very idea of a solar garden.7 Rather than providing “residential and small business
customers, who have limited land, capital and/or resources, access to distributed solar
generation” (Chandarana 2015) the proposals were, in the company’s estimation, simply utilityscale projects by another name, whose primary beneficiaries would be entities with an appetite
for large volumes of electricity and the financial wherewithal to support that appetite. On the
basis of these conclusions, the company announced that “all projects which have proposed colocated gardens with an aggregate capacity greater than 1 MW will be scaled to 1 MW” (Xcel
Supplemental Comments 2015).
The response from various parties, including developers and some in the advocacy
community, was a predictable outrage built upon the ‘expansion’ frame noted above.
Community Solar Gardens, an ad hoc coalition representing most of the large solar developers
in the state, for instance, noted the clear and critical distinction between a solar garden site
versus a solar garden project, claiming that “there is no limitation on the number of Community
Solar Garden projects that may be situated in close proximity to each other under either the
Xcel CSG Tariff or State law” (Community Solar Garden 2015). Further, said these parties, “tens
of millions of dollars have been invested by developers relying both on the Commission’s [prior]
orders and actions, as well as the representations of Xcel Energy” (Moratzka 2015, 2). As
evidenced by this already substantial financial commitment, disallowing chained arrays would
be contrary to the statutory purpose of spurring the “investment and jobs in solar energy”
6
The idea of a hedge is tied to the financial relationship among the subscriber, the utility and the developer. The
developer builds and owns the array and recruits subscribers who pay either an up-front or monthly amount
sufficient to install and maintain the array, the payment being based upon the percentage share of the array’s
output purchased by the subscriber and a pre-determined per-kwh cost. The participating utility provides a bill
credit to the subscriber based upon the subscriber’s share and a per-kwh rate specified by a regulatory authority.
Since (a) electric rates are expected to rise over time while the payment from the subscriber to the developer
remains fixed over the life of the contract and (b) the bill credit is generally expected to be greater than the
payment to the developer, the subscriber’s overall energy costs are reduced relative to what they would normally
pay both now and in the future; hence, the idea of a hedge.
7
In order to meet regulatory requirements Xcel has recently committed to a significant amount of solar capacity
throughout their system, including a significant number of so-called solar farms.
8
required to increase Minnesota’s installed solar capacity from 13 MW to more than 450 MW
(Minnesota Solar Energy Industry Association 2015; see also TruNorth 2013; MN Community
Solar 2015).
While the state’s Attorney General (OAG-RUAD) likewise found that community solar
gardens were intended to “spur investment in solar generation,” they also noted a second
instrumental goal, namely, to “expand access to solar incentives to groups that had previously
been excluded” (2015), a line of argument strongly supported by many other interveners.
Sundial Solar, for instance, claimed that the sort of “giant multi-megawatt arrays” proposed by
numerous developers are “clearly NOT within the intent of the original legislation . . . Such
multiple megawatt solar arrays are not ‘community solar’ at all – rather, they are utility scale
solar” (2015; see also TruNorth Solar 2015 and Kandiyo Consulting 2015).
Turning a program designed “to make solar available to the average person that does
not have the space or the proper orientation on their roof” (AEG Group 2015) into a vehicle for
the recruitment of corporate or other large-scale subscribers looking to find a hedge against
future energy price increases was also said to violate another central premise of a more
democratic and just energy system, namely, a reallocation of benefits from the most to the
least deserving. “The legislature,” said the company, “did not intend for a large utility scale
solar program – lawmakers wanted this program to be for residential and community-based
(i.e., churches) customers” (2015, 3). It would be unconscionable, said another group of
developers, to go forward with a program that could ultimately hurt the program’s intended
beneficiaries “by raising rates . . . for communities that already struggle with high energy costs”
(Renewable Energy Partners 2015).8 As noted by Catholic Charities, while the organization
(Sorenson 2015):
[B]elieves strongly in environmental stewardship and continued progress toward
the use of renewable resources such as solar, it is critically important that
progress not come at the expense of those most in need. They simply cannot
afford to subsidize or cross-subsidize with higher utility rates those who might
otherwise benefit from investments in solar energy.
8
The company and its supporters argued that subscribers would be subsidized by other ratepayers and that the
average ratepayer bill would increase by up to 2 percent as a result of system costs imposed by the program,
should all 400 plus MW be brought on line (Chandarana, February 10, 2015).
9
Communities of Scale: The Future of Shared Solar Going Forward
On June 25, 2015 the PUC issued new guidance limiting gardens sites to no more than 5
MW in the aggregate or five co-located solar garden projects. The size limit applied to existing
applications only; an even more restrictive 1 MW site restriction will be applied in 2016 and
beyond. The impact of this contentious decision is, of course, debatable. According to the
utility “even under the revised size limit, Minnesota likely will have the nation’s largest solar
garden program.” Those protesting the decision, on the other hand, argued that it “could mean
the end to solar garden development unless the rules are revised” (Shaffer 2015).
Whatever
the ultimate impact, it is clear that the Commission’s order was at least implicitly predicated
upon the ‘democratization’ frame discussed above.
No matter the ultimate size of the solar garden program, however, assuming that the 1
MW restriction goes into effect, developers will have to move away from a business model
based upon the enrollment of a small number of large subscribers that were fairly easy to
identify and recruit (CEC 2015). Instead, developers will have to create marketing approaches
and recruitment strategies appropriate to a heterogeneous universe of small subscribers largely
unfamiliar with the opportunities afforded by a shared solar program.9 Success in this much
more challenging consumer environment will depend upon a sophisticated understanding of
processes underlying the diffusion of innovative practices and, in particular, the role played by
peers and near-peers in the subscription decision process.
As Rogers notes, “interpersonal channels are more effective in persuading an individual
to adopt a new idea, especially if [they] are near-peers. At the heart of the diffusion process,
therefore, is the modeling and imitation by potential adopters of their network partners who
have adopted previously” (1983, 18). The reason why “near-peers” are so critical is that “even
if the content is discussed, for the receiver to adopt it and (potentially) to influence others
9
In the course of the most recent hearings, many of the large developers went to some lengths to assert that they
would be comfortable with a 50 percent residential subscriber requirement for even the largest of projects.
Whether this was simply rhetoric designed to appease a clearly skeptical Commission or a sincere and realistic
statement of fact will now be put the test (MN PUC 2015).
10
requires not only comprehension of the message but also attitude change and commitment”
(Weatherford 1982, 122), a transformation which is more likely if information is communicated
by peers rather than by experts (Rogers 1983, 331; see also Coleman 1959 and Weatherford
1982). Leonard-Barton makes the same point, arguing that “[N]umerous marketing and
diffusion studies have demonstrated that the more favorable information a potential adopter
has received from peers, the more likely that individual is to adopt” (1985, 914) which, in the
present case, would mean giving serious consideration to becoming a solar garden subscriber.10
The importance of peers in persuading citizens to participate in various civic activities is
also well-documented, including amongst citizens who already possess high levels of civic
engagement and crucial political resources, such as time, money, and skills.11 Informal
conversations about politics among peers also positively impacts the participation levels of
citizens by providing specific information from trusted sources (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006;
Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995; Mutz 2002) with recent research examining the influence of peers
on individual political behavior suggesting that “civically relevant discussions with peers
promote civic activity by subsidizing the costs and increasing the benefits associated with
participating” (Klofstad 2007, 180). According to Klofstad, “[P]eers go about this in three ways:
by providing individuals with information on how to become active in civic activities, by
increasing individuals' engagement with politics and current events, and by explicitly asking
individuals to participate in civic activities” (2007, 180).
In addition to their ability to persuade and motivate individuals who might otherwise
resist the idea of becoming a solar garden subscriber, there are a number of more immediate
and practical reasons why peer networks and peer-based organizations are likely to play a
critical role in creating economically viable household and small-business subscriber bases.
10
Recent surveys of potential subscribers in Minnesota and Colorado support this conclusion. Thus, individuals
representing either an investor-owned utility or a local installer were burdened by a heavy dose of suspicion;
spokespersons from a cooperative or municipal utility fared somewhat better, perhaps reflecting a sort of ‘distant
nearness’ associated with such organizations. Most importantly, while respondents did not express much of a
desire to work directly with neighbors or affinity groups, they nonetheless expressed a higher level of trust in these
sources relative to any other source of information (Hoffman and High-Pippert 2015).
11
See Ulbig and Waggener 2011; Klofstad 2007; Gerber and Green 2000; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995;
Rosenstone and Hansen 1993.
11
First, given the immaturity of the shared solar market, a campaign based upon recruiting
households and/or small businesses individually is likely to impose very high per subscriber
transaction costs (CEC 2015).
Secondly, a direct marketing campaign, either physical or
electronic, would also confront a public that is generally unreceptive to the daily deluge of
‘guaranteed, money-saving opportunities’ received both in their physical and electronic
mailboxes. More positively, as will be demonstrated below, developers will find it fairly easy to
identify and partner with a wide and diverse array of potential organizational partners through
which peer relationships are mediated. Such organizations would include informal social clubs
such as neighborhood reading groups, garden clubs, and so on, as well as much more formal
but nonetheless very localized organizations such as parent-teacher associations, faith-based
organizations, environmental organizations, and business organization, to name a few.
Based upon these factors, two primary approaches to building ‘communities of scale’, or
economically viable household and small-business subscriber bases, can be identified. The first
of these would rely upon affinity groups and the voluntary, associational behavior that has long
been a defining feature of the American civic landscape (Skocpol 2003); the second upon local
governments or other institutional vehicles that populate the American political system.
Social asset/affinity models
Affinity is said to exist “between individuals when they share interests that draw them
together and provide an initial orientation for further interactions” (Marti 2009, 57). Further,
writes Marti, “given the complexity of the social self, the many groups a person may be a
member of, and the interconnections between personal identity and group affiliation, mean
that there are many layers to individual identity and, consequently, multiple actual and
potential group memberships” (2009, 57). In this respect, an affinity group can be understood
as “the bringing together of people who have something important in common, e.g., race,
gender, profession or special interests, [or] who share a common experience or passion” (NAIS
2006; Blitz and Kahn 2012).
Based upon their organizational capacity, an affinity group, which in the case of a shared
solar project can be referred to as a ‘community aggregator’ (CA), might play any number of
12
roles, the most basic role being that of a ‘lead generator’. In fulfilling this role, a CA would
assist a developer in the identification of potential subscribers by providing membership lists
that would be used in the development and implementation of a traditional marketing
campaign, i.e., paid advertising, social media efforts, drop-off solicitations, and so on.
A more active level of involvement would involve the CA making available to members
information about solar gardens and, possibly acting as a first-stop resource for answering basic
questions about community solar. Moving up to this level of involvement entails a number of
considerations. First, the organization would have to increase their technical capacity, in that at
least some of their members would have to be in a position to answer basic questions about
the nature and operations of community solar project. Second, the CA would have to have a
clear understanding about the nature of their relationship with developers, including deciding
whether to have an exclusive arrangement with a single developer versus providing information
to their members from a number of developers. Finally, a CA could also assume some portion
of the on-going operational requirements of the projects with responsibilities ranging from
contract administration to the actual physical maintenance of the system. In either case, a
good degree of technical sophistication would be demanded of the CA. Beyond all of these
roles, a CA could also become a subscriber. In doing so they would be modeling the behavior
they wish to see on the part of their members while sending a message about the reliability of
the project and the benefits it will generate.
The question is why would an affinity group agree to become a CA? Two types of
incentives exist, the first being a sort of ‘moral incentive’ that is explored in detail below. More
pragmatically, there are also potentially significant financial benefits to the CA. For instance, a
CA can be offered a one-time ‘referral’ or ‘finders’ fee for every new subscriber that is signed
up through the CA. Alternatively, a CA may receive a one-time per-watt fee that based upon an
individual’s subscription package.12
Whatever role is to be played by a CA, for the variety of reasons that will be discussed
below, certain affinity groups, namely faith communities, neighborhood organizations,
12
Assume, for instance, a referral fee of $.02/watt, the wattage being the number of watts subscribed to by a
referred subscriber. Assuming 200 subscribers per MW, this works out to $20,000 fee per MW or $.02 x 1,000,000
watts = $20,000).
13
environmental organizations, and certain business groups, are likely to be particularly fertile
grounds for organizing recruitment efforts. We now turn to a brief examination of a number of
such organizations that have emerged in response to Minnesota’s community solar policies.
Faith Communities
Since its 2004 founding as Congregations Caring for Creation, the now re-named
Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light (MN IPL) has “mobilized religious support for landmark
legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Minnesota, educated hundreds of thousands
of congregants, and worked with every major religious denomination in the state” (About MN
IPL).
More recently, the organization has sought to connect “MN IPL congregations with
resources and the information to move forward with investing in solar at the individual or
congregational level” by encouraging members to become subscribers in community solar
projects.
According to MN IPL, its efforts are based on a specific value proposition revolving
around the creation of “inclusive, egalitarian and diverse social and economic partnerships” as
well as “stewardship”, or valuing “the natural environment as much as the human one [and]
realizing the mutual interdependence of each to survive and thrive.” Rather than presenting
solar gardens as simply another commodity option, MN IPL promotes community and
distributed “energy as part of a moral paradigm shift” in which a community of faith and its
members can participate. Indeed, argues MN IPL, “investing in solar power is part of a larger
commitment to moral action.”
In order to operationalize these values, MN IPL requires potential developer-partners to,
among other things, describe their “labor recruitment and hiring policy and how it might focus
on skill development of workers as well as minorities and women; confirm that they . . . will
support paying every worker a fair wage; and describe how [they] will maximize the ability of
low-income residents to subscribe” to the proposed solar garden project (MN IPL 2015).
Developers are also asked whether they are willing to “consider incorporating compatible,
concurrent and sustainable uses of the land that promote biodiversity” into their proposal.
14
Finally, developers are called upon to “educate MN IPL’s network about CSGs and how they fit
into the larger evolution of energy sourcing” (MN IPL 2015).
Another important faith-based venture is that being developed by the Minnesota
Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance (MUUSJA), a multi-congregational social change
organizing effort that began in 2001. The Alliance was created following a prior effort centered
around affordable housing and is dedicated to “[U]nleashing courageous leadership and
collective power to realize a just and loving world.” Seven principles underlie the work of the
Unitarian Universalists (UUs), including the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice,
equity and compassion in human relations; the goal of world community with peace, liberty,
and justice for all; and respect for the interdependent web of all existence (MUUSJA 2015a).
As with MN IPL, MUUSJA is insistent that developers create projects in which benefits will flow
to “low-income congregants, friends, and targeted public populations” and which will insure
environmental benefits to historically underserved populations (MUUSJA 2015b). So important
is this value that MUUSJA and its congregants are willing to devote church resources to
subsidizing low-income subscribers whose financial situation would otherwise prevent them
from enrolling in the program.13
MUUSJA’s efforts are further informed by the notion that denominations are “natural
communities . . . where people know each other and it’s safe and expected to talk about values
and ethics” including the ethics of “earth stewardship and climate change avoidance” (MUUSJA
2015a). Indeed, solar gardens are seen by MUUSJA as a particularly powerful and effective
means of allowing congregants to act on individual values while building a sense of community
within the congregation. As noted by the organization, while many faith communities have socalled ‘Green Teams’ that are of interest to congregants with an environmental orientation,
these collaborative efforts are often undermined by either apathy caused by the need to work
13
The willingness to support the low income households coincides with another important finding of the Colorado
and Minnesota surveys, namely, the fact that while potential subscribers were not willing to pay additional
amounts for various siting options, they were willing to pay at least slightly more for projects that provided access
to low-income households (Hoffman and High-Pippert 2015). The marketing approach being developed by the
organization also relies heavily upon another finding of the Colorado and Minnesota surveys, namely, the necessity
of assuring at least some level of personal economic benefit. Thus, members are assured that while participation
in a community solar garden is an important means to act upon their core values, they will also be able to “save
money, too!” (MUUSJA 2015a).
15
on unexciting or uninspiring projects, or conversely, by the exacting technical demands
associated with many energy-related projects. Community solar gardens are said to avoid both
of these pitfalls by allowing “congregation members to lead each other by their simple example
and no-pressure advocacy.”14 Indeed, says MUUSJA, “before community solar gardens, our
electricity bill carries us towards climate change”; after CSGs, “our electricity bills become our
powerful, conscious, collective voice and grassroots tool for new energy innovations to cut
carbon and curb climate change” (MUUSJA 2015c).
Neighborhood and Community Organizations
While faith communities can play a key role in the development of communities of
scale, equally important are neighborhood and/or community organizations.
One such
organization that hopes to develop a community solar garden that will serve as a role model for
projects across Minnesota is Northfield Area Community Solar (NACS). Northfield is a town of
20,000 in southeastern Minnesota, about 45 minutes from the metropolitan area of
Minneapolis and St. Paul. The organization grew out of a breakout session at the Northfield
Area Climate Summit in January 2014, an event which attracted 900 participants. According to
the organization’s website, “NACS is composed of community members from all walks of life
who have worked together for years to make Northfield more environmentally responsible.” In
contrast to other community organizations profiled within this paper, NACS is an LLC that was
established specifically for the purpose of creating solar gardens in a particular geographic area.
NACS also illustrates the role of a local organization as a community aggregator, in this
case by partnering with a particular developer, MN Community Solar.15 According to one of its
co-chairs, NACS began the process by putting together a list of criteria for host sites and
developers, ultimately selecting MN Community Solar due, in large part, to what NACS
14
The question of just how much people have to know in order to participate in community energy programs is
significant given the complexity of energy systems. As we have argued elsewhere, community energy programs
cannot be expected to create policy or technical experts nor should organizers be frustrated by the absence of
large numbers of activists. Instead, the goal of a robust community energy program should be to find and/or
create well-informed citizens, some of whom are willing to invest time and effort in realizing the shared but
generally implicit values of the community in which they reside (Hoffman and High-Pippert, 2010).
15
The overt nature of this partnership is demonstrated by NACS’s website being merged with the developer’s.
16
perceived to be a common values orientation. Thus, MN Community Solar describes itself as
“Minnesota’s first turn-key community solar garden developer in Xcel Energy’s territory”
focused on “building solar gardens with Minnesota modules, Minnesota labor, and Minnesota
sunshine. We live here, we work here, and our roots in Minnesota matter to us” (Minnesota
Community Solar 2015). For an organization seeing itself as “an avenue for the residential
customer” to enjoy the benefits of solar energy and as a vehicle for “Keeping the Community in
Community Solar Gardens” such a clear expression of what can be referred to as “localness
values” deeply resonated with NACS leadership.
NACS also emphasizes both the environmental and practical benefits of community
solar, in this case emphasizing the opportunity for local actors to address a global problem: “By
producing clean electricity locally,” says the NACS, “you do your part to address climate change
globally. The smallest subscription offsets nearly 11,325 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions
over your subscription. That’s equivalent to the emissions from an average car driving 12,225
miles. You would need to plant 1,325 trees to absorb that much carbon dioxide” (NACS 2015b).
In recent months, MN Community Solar has signed a site lease with a Northfield-area
farmer for a 750 kw solar garden while NACS has started to fulfill its roles of ‘lead generator’
and ‘local recruiter’, a process that not only involves outreach to residential customers but
other institutional actors as well, i.e., schools, churches, and other non-profit organizations.
NACS also stresses the importance of expanding the pool of eligible residents beyond the
middle class (Rotary Cogwheel, 2015). Thus, part of the compensation that NACS will receive
from MN Community Solar for recruiting subscribers for the solar garden will be used to
subsidize the cost of subscriptions for low-income renters (Jossi 2015).
Another example of a neighborhood-based community solar program is that offered by
Linden Hills Power and Light (LHP&L), an organization doing business in the lakes area of the
city of Minneapolis. LHP&L is defined entirely by specific neighborhood boundaries and whose
work includes a variety of energy-related and waste reduction activities, including the
development of a neighborhood anaerobic digester. Long perceived as having both a strong
internal cohesion and a well-understood identity, Linden Hills has been described as “a small
town in the middle of Minneapolis,” with residents able to walk to a bookstore, a butcher, a
17
grocery store, and any number of local amenities. Other residents have commented on the
presence of front porches and the absence of fences, along with on-street parking, as
contributing to the ‘personality’ of the neighborhood, namely, a place where people see and
talk to their neighbors and, as a result, engage in a plethora of neighbor-based activities,
including book clubs, holiday parties, and frequent gatherings (Hoffman and High-Pippert
2010).
While LHP&L’s high degree of existing social capital makes the idea of talking about and
supporting a solar garden seem natural and comfortable, the messages used by the
organization in their recruitment efforts are available to any community-based effort. In
essence, LHP&L combines three distinct types of appeals, i.e., personal economic benefit, a
generalized community benefit, and an appeal to neighbor pride, all of which have been shown
to be potentially powerful motivational factors bearing upon the subscription decision
(Hoffman and High-Pippert 2015). Thus, residents are told that energy costs are offset by
becoming a subscriber and that these benefits move with the householder even if they move
from their existing home; that they will realize an estimated eight year return on investment;
that subscriptions can cover up to 120 percent of a subscriber’s annual electricity usage, and
that in an era or rising electricity costs, subscribers will have their electricity costs locked in for
twenty-five years. At the same time, residents are reminded that the panels that will generate
‘their’ electricity are ‘Minnesota-made’ by local companies that also manufacture other highquality solar energy systems. They are also told that the developer with whom they are
working is a local entity providing solar power to other well-known Minnesota individuals and
organizations.
Finally, subscribers are reminded that LHP&L is itself an award-winning,
neighborhood-based non-profit organization dedicated to sustainable energy, waste reduction
and energy conservation.16
A third example of a neighborhood-driven effort is Cooperative Energy Futures (CEF).
Based in a low-income community in South Minneapolis, CEF is a member-owned cooperative
that “uses the power of community to create economic opportunity through energy
efficiency…and empowers people to participate in simple climate and energy solutions that
16
See LHP&L’s website for this and other information at http://www.lhpowerandlight.org/community-solar.html.
18
work for everyone” (Cooperative Energy Futures 2015). CEF describes its vision as creating
“real community wealth” by providing incentives and tools that encourage neighbors to work
together to make home energy improvements, including hosting weatherization work parties
that encourage neighbors and members to work together on energy conservation. With CEF
staff providing training and tools, neighbors identify leaks and cracks in their own home’s
windows and doors and then break into teams and weatherize homes together. Goals of work
parties include not only teaching do-it-yourself conservation techniques, but also “making
energy conservation a comfortable and common topic for you and your neighbors, possibly
discovering common goals” (CEF 2015). Due to its status as a ‘cooperative of neighbors,’ CEF
also claims the ability to lower costs on insulation or air-sealing materials by contracting and
purchasing in bulk.
Another of CEF’s goals is to persuade people and communities to see themselves as
producers, and not simply consumers, in a ‘new clean energy economy’, a natural outcome of
which is their current interest in shared solar. Thus, CEF has been working to educate lowincome families and renters about the benefits of shared solar for the past two years; indeed,
the organization prioritizes access to community solar gardens for low-income subscribers and
renters.
While CEF principally identifies as a place-based organization, it will, in fact, work with
any kind of community – geographic, cultural, or faith-based – that is interested in developing a
community solar garden.17 In what might be an important model suitable to the ‘post-1 MW’
period, CEF is part of a coalition of local organizations, including MN IPL, that is developing a
community solar garden to be built on the roof of Shiloh Temple International Ministries, a
North Minneapolis church and community center. According to recent projections, “one
subscription would produce 260 kilowatt-hours per year, at a projected cost under $450”
without an upfront one-time payment (Bruch 2015).
17
CEF’s public education campaign
CEF is also flexible with regard to their preferred financial model. Although it encourages upfront subscription
models in order to minimize financing costs and maximize savings over the long term, CEF “works with
communities to structure subscription options to meet needs and provide transparency of the long-term costs and
benefits of each option” with the goal of achieving “savings for upfront subscribers equivalent to at least a 5%
return on investment, and average savings for pay-as-you-go subscribers equivalent to 8% or more discount on
energy costs” (Spotlight: Cooperative Energy, 2015).
19
regarding the project emphasizes a variety of benefits, from local jobs to cleaner air and
healthier communities, while highlighting the significant difference between this project and
other approaches to community solar within the state as well as the sort of values-driven
incentives central to the development of many community-based solar gardens (CEF 2015):
Most other community gardens being developed are being built on open fields in
rural areas by large corporate developers. Many of them only allow large
corporations or local governments to subscribe, and those that do allow
residential subscribers usually only allow residents with high credit scores to
participate. The solar garden at Shiloh Temple will demonstrate a model for
community solar gardens that advances economic and environmental justice by
locating clean energy in a low-income community of color, creating green jobs
for local residents, and making sure that low-income families have access to
saving money from community solar. This project will be a role model for more
socially just community solar gardens across Minnesota.
Other Types of Affinity-Based Community Aggregators
In addition to faith- and place-based affinity groups, there are other organizational
models that could easily serve as community aggregators, particularly in light of the PUC’s
recent order. Business organizations, for instance, could take the lead in generating proposals
suitable for the more densely developed urban core with its mixture of large rooftops and small
open spaces. For instance, a project being explored along St. Paul’s new transit line would
“develop 80-100 projects . . . with a combined capacity of at least 15 megawatts of solar
energy” (Krause 2015). Building owners along the corridor with suitable rooftops for solar
energy, almost all of which are small businesses, will have the option to participate as a ‘host
site’ for these projects. In addition to a “turn-key development that includes energy guarantees
and lifetime operation and maintenance of the solar equipment [as well as] a hedge against
fossil fuel costs and increases in the cost of electricity for the next 25 years”, a business serving
as a host site, could, according to project developers, bring “goodwill for your business or
organization” (Krause 2015). Such benefits could strongly incentivize individual business to
serve as host sites while encouraging business organizations, such as local Chambers of
Commerce and Rotary Clubs, to take on the role of community aggregator.
20
Many other types of civic organizations could also easily serve as conduits through
which subscribers might be solicited.
Environmental organizations would seem naturally
receptive to the notion of community solar as an instrument capable of advancing the idea of a
broadly defined clean energy future or simply ‘doing good for the planet’. Other organizations,
eager to fulfill community service requirements, might well be willing to at least circulate
information amongst parents and/or host informational sessions. Fraternal organizations, i.e.,
the Elks Clubs, the Lions Clubs, even Veterans clubs such as the American Legion or VFW posts,
could also see the economic advantages realized by subscribers as closely related to their larger
missions of providing services to their membership.
In sum, the voluntary, associational landscape that defines American civic culture offers
enormous opportunities for the solicitation and successful recruitment of subscribers to
community solar projects. Given the diversity of this landscape, developers would be welladvised to craft specific marketing campaigns and messages designed to appeal to a range of
potential subscribers. At the same time, developers would find it to their advantage to work
with a diverse range of associational partners, thus maximizing their exposure to the many and
varied sorts of motivational factors driving the subscription decision.
Institutional Approaches to CSGs
If affinity groups are a potentially critical means in building viable subscriber bases, so
too are institutionally-grounded approaches, though such efforts do come with a number of
inherent difficulties, including a lower level of trust relative to affinity groups. Institutional
efforts are also freighted with a degree of bureaucratic inertia flowing from various approaches
towards ‘community engagement’ that treat ‘the public’ as a body of stakeholders whose input
is valued to the extent that they have a vested interest in the actions to be undertaken by a unit
of local government. Boswell et al., for instance, argue that participants in all types of Green
Ribbon Task Forces, Public Task Forces, and Community Workshops only occasionally involve
‘average citizens’; instead the roster is more likely to include various specific interests, including
utilities, large corporate actors, and occasionally, local nongovernmental organizations. Rather
than a means of achieving broad-based, meaningful, and perhaps most importantly, sustained
21
public deliberation, public participation is seen as a process meant to “legitimate the plans . . .
[and] gain ’buy-in’ from the public” (Boswell, et al., 2012: 65). Communication, whether
through media and public relations campaigns, educational meetings and workshop,
exhibitions, mail and e-mail, as well as more ‘advanced techniques’ such as visioning processes,
focus groups, questionnaires and other surveys, computer-based polling, social marketing/Web
2.0, and competitions and challenges (Boswell et al., 2012: 80-83; see also Mackres and
Kazerooni, 2012) is typically one-way, that is, from the institution to the household.
The Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) has all of the trappings of a top-down,
expert-driven process, beginning with a Board that is composed of representatives from the
City of Minneapolis and the city’s electric and gas provider (Xcel Energy and CenterPoint
Energy, respectively). CEP is meant to provide a “collaborative leadership framework through
which the City and utilities will study, prioritize, plan, coordinate, implement, market, track, and
report progress on clean energy activities in the city . . . The CEP Board also collects community
feedback through the Energy Vision Advisory Committee (EVAC) to aid in their decision making”
and the development of work plans that are “designed to leverage statewide policies, city
municipal regulatory authority, community relationships, and utility expertise to increase the
penetration rate of energy efficiency and renewable energy as well as education and focus on
reliability and equity of energy services in Minneapolis” (City of Minneapolis 2015). Thus, while
consideration of ‘equity’ is a nod to the sort of values-driven agenda that drives the activities of
affinity groups, the CEP’s core focus is on technocratic issues that are embedded in a deep
reservoir of process and procedure, an orientation captured in the CEP’s ‘EVAC Process and
Feedback Summary’ (City of Minneapolis 2015):
At their February 2015 meeting, the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership (CEP)
Board adopted a set of Potential Work Plan Items for the Planning Team to bring
to the Energy Vision Advisory Committee (EVAC) for review. This list of potential
items included high-priority items that were the result of an intensive City
stakeholder process while developing the Minneapolis Climate Action Plan, as
well as the recommendations of the Energy Pathways Study and the Memoranda
of Understanding between the City and Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy.
22
While working one’s way through such a bureaucratic thicket no doubt offers a
challenge to the average citizen, institutional efforts such as these might nonetheless serve as
an important pathway to a successful community solar program. Minneapolis’ Clean Energy
Partnership 2015-2016 Work Plan, for instance, gives to community solar a fairly prominent
position, falling somewhere in the middle of the Plan’s priority items (City of Minneapolis 2015,
10). The City also sees important advantages accruing to an often overlooked residential
segment, namely, households occupying multi-family buildings, many of whom are likely to be
low-income.
According to the City, there is much that can be done to increase access
renewable energy for these populations, including engaging community-based organizations to
conduct outreach, developing a citywide challenge or other innovative approaches to promote
solar gardens, educating and marketing the program to residential consumers, including to the
many and diverse non-English-speaking households that reside in the city, developing a “onestop” location for information on community solar gardens (CSGs) available to Minneapolis
customers, and expanding outreach to customers to drive participation (2015). In addition, city
government could positively model CSGs by “participating as a customer of one or more CSGs
for City-purchased electricity” with an eye towards developing a Minneapolis-located, citysponsored project that would incorporate requirements for “equity hiring for construction,
project development, and potential subscribers” and the use of a local workforce [with]
MBE/WBE/Vet participation” (City of Minneapolis 2015).18
Other smaller cities throughout the state are demonstrating a similar appetite for
shared solar projects, in some cases by partnering with private developers in the construction
of a residential and small-business subscriber base. The city of Cologne, for instance, has
recently agreed to become a subscriber to a community solar project to be implemented by
Sunshare, a developer with broad experience in both Colorado and Minnesota. According to
the City Administrator, while the project allows the city to off-set 100 percent of its municipal
electricity use with clean locally-generated solar electricity, an equally important benefit will be
found in extending the program to its “residents and businesses” by allowing them to enroll as
subscribers to the array (Fresh Energy 2015b).
18
Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE), and veterans.
23
As in Minneapolis, the city’s role as subscriber would also have positive modeling effects
which, in turn, would further enable the use of peer and near-peer networks in the recruitment
process. While it is important not to overestimate the ‘neighboring’ qualities of such places,
the fact remains that ‘word of mouth advertising’ is much more easily accomplished and may,
in fact, facilitate a more direct door-knocking approach to the solicitation of residential
subscribers. In this respect, the recruitment effort is, to some extent, a function of the specific
place and the social attributes that characterize that place.
Like incorporated cities, towns and places, local public utilities can also play an
important role in the development of shared solar initiatives. According to the sector’s trade
association, fourteen percent of all U.S. customers are served by publicly-owned utilities,
defined as state, county, municipally-owned utilities and public power districts, while
cooperative-owned utilities serve thirteen percent of all U.S. customers. Together, they serve
some forty-seven million customers through 2,000 separate organizations.19 Many of these
entities are distribution only systems, meaning that they purchase generation from so-called
G&Ts (generation and transmission utilities), thus making the idea of adding generation to their
system, even at the scale of community-based systems, a sometimes difficult proposition.
Nonetheless, these organizations, which are either locally owned or locally governed by the
customers they serve, would appear to be a natural vehicle for shared solar projects.
According to the Minnesota Rural Electric Association, for instance, electric cooperatives
serve approximately 1.8 million of Minnesota’s 5.1 million residents and cover eighty-five
percent of the geographic area of the state (2015). Although cooperative utilities launched a
successful lobbying campaign to remain exempt from solar mandates created by the 2013
legislation, co-ops are considered by many in the state to be “leading Minnesota’s community
solar development” (Shaffer 2014a). Lake Region Electric Cooperative, a co-op in West Central
Minnesota, has built one community solar array and has already begun work on another while a
co-op in southeastern corner of the state, Tri-County Electric, had to double the size of its
community solar project due to high levels of interest among members (Shaffer 2014a).
19
.See http://www.publicpower.org/files/PDFs/Electricity%20at%20a%20Glance.pdf.
24
Interestingly however, while ‘community’ might well be an underlying notion assumed
by most cooperative utilities when describing their solar gardens, there are relatively few
explicit uses of this frame, except to the extent that they present their community solar
projects as a response to the needs and interests of their members.
Instead, project
descriptions and overviews tend to emphasize two particular benefits to members: locking in
electricity rates and providing a hassle-free way to ‘go solar’. The state’s largest retail electric
cooperative utility, Connexus Energy, “is marketing its solar garden as a hedge against future
rate increases” (Shaffer 2014b), with specific language such as “Lock in today’s electric rate for
the community solar portion of your Connexus Energy bill until the year 2034” on their
SolarWise project description. Tri-County Electric highlights this potential financial benefit as
well, noting that member participation in the co-op’s Renewable Rays program “locks in your
renewable energy that will hedge your electric costs for the next 20 years” (Tri-County Electric,
2015).
McLeod Cooperative Power Association uses very similar language in its project
descriptions, and Lake Region Electric Cooperative goes one step further in its promotion of
community solar, with the following testimonial from a member: “In a few years I plan to sell
my home and I will give the panel to my son. By then, regular electric rates will be higher than
the solar and it should be a valuable gift” (Lake Region Electric Cooperative, 2015). 20
In addition to the message about locking in rates, cooperative utilities tend to
underscore the idea of community solar as the hassle-free way to get involved with solar
power. Connexus Energy and McLeod Cooperative Power Association, for example, both
emphasize that nothing is installed at a member’s property and there will be no additional
maintenance or repair costs. Lake Region Electric Cooperative describes community solar as
“an affordable, low-risk way for LREC members to enjoy the benefits of solar energy without
the hassle of designing, permitting, installing, maintaining, and insuring their own PV solar
array” (Lake Region Electric Cooperative, 2015).
Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric
Association’s Solar Community’s slogan reiterates this message: “A simple way to own solar”
(Wright-Hennepin Electric, 2015).
This testimonial addresses another common concern about shared solar programs, which is how solar
credits could be transferred in the event of a move.
20
25
In addition to incorporated places and local utilities, schools can also play a role in the
development of shared solar projects. Funded in large part by local property taxes and
overseen by local boards, schools are generally vested with a strong sense of local pride around
which an identity is generated, particularly in the case of small towns and rural areas (Hoffman
and High-Pippert 2015). All of these factors may coalesce in the pursuit of a community solar
garden; such is the case with greater Minnesota’s Foley-area public schools. According to
district administrators, their community solar subscription is projected to save the district
roughly $4 million over the 20 year contract while offering the district a set of highly-valued
community and educational benefits. Thus (Fresh Energy 2015b):
Buying into a larger community garden with other families and businesses allows
the school district to take advantage of lower up-front costs and a vastly simpler
process. They are working with developers to ensure that district employees will
also be able to sign up for individual subscriptions as well. At the end of the day,
community solar offers Foley Public Schools an easy way to use affordable
alternative energy while providing a tangible educational opportunity for
students of all ages to see how solar energy is produced right in their own
community.
Conclusion
As noted in the introduction to this paper, “increase[d] access to solar energy for all
Americans” is now a stated goal of the Obama administration. While most of the growth in the
production of solar energy has been among utility-scale projects, this national initiative focuses
welcome attention on the importance of developing community solar programs in general and
shared solar projects in particular (White House 2015).
While states such as Minnesota are
attempting to determine the meaning of community solar in regards to size and scale, states,
local communities and private sector organizations, not to mention the White House, should
not lose sight of the importance of the principles of both economic and participatory
democracy.
Indeed, maintaining a proper balance between the goals of expansion and
democratization offers a means to address the overwhelming problem of climate change while
giving voice to those seeking a more just and equitable energy system.
26
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