Which solar inverter manufacturers are most financially stable?  Sinovoltaics, in its latest financial stability ranking of inverter manufacturers lists Hoymiles, Eaton and others at the top. 

Biden issues new proclamation on solar cell tariffs  Tariffs on solar cells remain, but volume increases from 5 GW to 12.5 GW.

What happens when solar is installed without homeowner’s permission A Connecticut couple and several companies including Sunrun have been sued by the state’s Attorney General for forging signatures, faking a voices, and unlawfully installing solar panels on a home without the owners’ consent.

Ebon Solar to invest nearly $1 billion in U.S. solar cell factory The solar cell manufacturing facility is to be located in New Mexico and expected to bring over 900 jobs to the area.

IRA 2-year anniversary: A look at its successes and failures David Burton, attorney with Norton Rose Fulbright and specialist in energy tax law, looks at tax credit transfer, domestic content, energy communities, prevailing wage and more.

Rhode Island has enacted the “Residential Solar Energy Disclosure and Homeowners Bill of Rights Act” to protect homeowners from predatory door-to-door sales tactics in the solar industry.

The law applies to any individual selling a solar system purchase agreement, a lease agreement, or a power purchase agreement (PPA). It covers anyone soliciting a homeowner or selling a solar project for up to four individual housing units simultaneously. Notably, the law does not apply to solar lease deals with payment terms of less than five years, transactions that involve a generator, or commercial systems.

The law requires all parties selling residential solar to register with the state and renew the registration annually. For the solar company, at least one person in charge of residential sales must have their name and address on file with the state. Additionally, all individuals directly selling to homeowners must undergo a national background check, including fingerprinting, which must be submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The registration process will be managed by the Rhode Island Division of Taxation.

The Department of Business Regulation is authorized to investigate complaints, impose administrative penalties, revoke registrations, and order violators to cease operations. The department can also impose fines of up to $5,000 per violation for up to four years after the violation has occurred.

The law mandates that specific documents be provided to homeowners. A hard copy or email of the solar agreement must be given to the homeowner. Additionally, the state will issue a standard disclosure form that must include the following information:

• A statement indicating whether operations and maintenance are included in the agreement.
• A written estimate of projected savings over the system’s expected lifespan.
• An estimate of savings beyond the system’s anticipated useful life.
• Data fields used to calculate the savings projections.
• The electricity escalation rate applied in the savings assumptions.
• Information on tax credit eligibility.

Additionally, the new law gives residential customers the right to rescind or cancel the deal for seven days after entering the agreement.

The law goes into effect in March 2025.

The bill was prompted by an increase in consumer complaints regarding aggressive and misleading sales tactics by some solar companies. By implementing these regulations, the state aims to build public trust and encourage the adoption of solar energy while protecting consumers from unscrupulous actors. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha, along with other state officials, has emphasized the importance of these protections in fostering a reliable and transparent solar industry in Rhode Island.

Several other U.S. states have taken action against door-to-door sales companies. Minnesota recently sued four of the nation’s largest solar finance companies. Vision Solar has been sued in multiple states, including Connecticut and Arizona, while Vivint Solar, prior to its acquisition by Sunrun, was sued in New Mexico. Sunrun, along with several other solar door-to-door companies, has also been sued in Connecticut.

(Read: “U.S. government announces resources to protect solar customers“)

DCE Solar announced its Eco-Top rooftop solar mounting structure has achieved UL 3741 certification, placing the product in compliance with National Electric Code (NEC) 2020 standards.

The Eco-Top rooftop mount structure is designed for commercial and industrial rooftops. It is a ballasted racing system with durable recycled rubber ballast pads. DCE Solar said the mounts are designed to be roof-friendly, protecting the integrity of a roof by leveraging aerodynamics and structural performance to minimize roof loading. The mount uses recycled rubber ballast pads that limit vibration and protect the roof membrane and uses decreased ballast blocks and attachment counts to limit roof penetration and damage.

DCE Solar said its system requires five times fewer mechanical attachments and ballast blocks, resulting in material and labor savings of $0.03 to $0.06 per watt.

The company offers two main options – the Eco-Top High Density, which increases capacity by up to 20% with more wattage per square foot, and the Eco-Top-MR for metal roofs.

All structural components are constructed from g115 galvanized steel. An integral wind deflector minimizes system loading and also functions as a ballast tray, providing a location to place ballast in the array.

The structure is fastened via serrated flange heads. It has built-in vibration resistance and integral grounding and bonding, and all nuts are wax coated to eliminate galling.

The structure is rated for an average dead load of 3.5 psf, or 90 mph wind. It enables flat, 5 degrees, or 10-degree angle tilt. It has a 14 inch or 18 inch shade spacing. The Eco-Top mount supports all major module brands.

“Passing the UL 3741 certification for our Eco-Top Roof-Top solution underscores our dedication to safety, innovation, and efficiency in the solar industry,” said Bill Taylor, chief executive officer, DCE Solar. “This certification not only validates the quality of our product but also provides our customers with the confidence that they are investing in a top-tier, secure solar solution.”

DCE Solar is a U.S. manufacturer of solar ground-mounts and roof-mounted racking systems, founded in 2009. Find a product sheet for the Eco-Top here.

U.S. government announces resources to protect solar customers  Treasury, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission have partnered on developing consumer advisories and educational resources to help people navigate the solar buying process while avoiding deceptive practices.

O&M executives seeking underperforming solar assets Zack Hobbs and Casey Gilley are seeking to purchase, repower and maximize solar power farms that asset owners don’t have the time or resources to redevelop.

Republicans request continuation of IRA post-January Eighteen Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to preserve the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if their party takes control of the political reins in January.

New bidding strategy for PV asset owners operating in spot market Conceived by an international research team, the new bidding strategy applies to the day-after and the intraday markets. It uses a technique that transforms results from probabilistic models into actual scenarios. Their method showed its ability to yield increased revenues and reduced imbalance.

Jera Nex acquires U.S. solar sites from Lightsource bp Jera Nex has purchased two US solar arrays totaling 395 MW from Lightsource bp. The acquisition marks Jera Nex’s first deal since it launched in April. Lightsource bp will continue to manage assets and provide maintenance services at the projects.

U.S. DOE announces $1.45 billion loan for Qcells solar panel factory The Department of Energy announced a conditional commitment to loan Qcells for its Georgia factory producing solar ingots, wafers, cells, and panels.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are providing resources to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive consumer acts and practices in the residential solar power sector.

The residential solar industry is booming in the U.S., with the Solar Energy Industries Association forecasting that 15% of U.S. homes will have solar by 2030. But just as there’s been strong growth in solar installations in recent years, there’s also been an increase in consumer complaints about unscrupulous practices by some solar companies.  These include pressuring consumers into predatory contracts or purchases, unfair financing, failing to install or activate residential solar systems as promised, and more.

Treasury, CFPB and FTC released consumer advisories warning the public on how to spot potential unfair and deceptive practices and encouraging consumers to file complaints of suspicious behavior to FTC, CFPB, and state consumer protection offices. The advisories are intended as educational resources to help consumers understand the solar-shopping process in order to make informed decisions. They describe different types of solar power options, warn about common unfair or deceptive practices, provide key questions to ask before making purchases or signing agreements, and provide instructions on how consumers can file complaints.

Treasury, CFPB, and FTC, along with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), also announced an interagency partnership with the goal of coordinating efforts to prevent predatory practices. The new partnership will foster greater communication and collaboration between the agencies and better protect consumers from bad actors.

“While skyrocketing growth of the residential solar industry is lowering costs for consumers nationwide, a small number of bad actors are taking advantage of opportunities to scam customers,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “By providing new information to consumers interested in solar energy for their homes and coordinating across federal agencies to prevent scams, the Biden-Harris Administration is helping to ensure consumers who want to lower their utility bills are able to successfully do so.”

See the Treasury Consumer Advisories and Educational Resources here:

• Consumer Solar Awareness Website
• Solar Consumer Advisory
• Before You Buy Solar Panels
• Before You Sign a Solar Lease
• Before You Sign a Power Purchase Agreement
• Before You Sign a Solar Subscription

See the FTC resources here:

• Consumer: How To Avoid Getting Burned
• Business: Don’t Waste Your Energy On a Solar Scam

See the CFPB resources here:

• Issue Spotlight
• Consumer Advisory

The government partnership follows development of two industry standards by SEIA, designed to help protect solar energy customers from deceptive and unethical practices and is seeking public comment on the standards. The two standards, 401 and 201 ensure transparency for customers while also enhancing the safety and quality of installations. Read more about these standards here.

Also read With great (solar) power comes great responsibility

Utility-scale agrivoltaic installation in Ohio is now operational Savion developed the 180 MW solar power plant located in Madison County, one of the first operating utility-scale solar sites to integrate soybeans, alfalfa and forage crop production within the array.

Solar trade group sets standards for ethical solar practices The Solar Energy Industries Association seeks public comment on two standards designed to ensure transparent, ethical solar sales practices and to raise the bar for safety and durability of rooftop solar and storage installations.

With acquisition of Lyra, Aurora adds automated permitting to its toolbox Lyra provides permit packaging software that automates permit-ready solar designs.

Trial by fire: Inside Sungrow’s thermal event testing Sungrow says the industry needs to do more to increase public confidence in lithium-ion battery storage.

Solar electricity “a good idea” for 83% of poll respondents Support for solar electricity has declined by 8% since 2013, according to a recent RMI poll.

Solar nears 9% of U.S. total electric generation capacity The monthly energy infrastructure update from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) shows solar accounted for nearly 80% of capacity additions in May, continuing its dominance of new-build generation.

Mission Solar introduces modules for C&I and utility-scale The residential solar panel manufacturer introduced large format bifacial solar modules for larger projects.

Cybersecurity guidelines for smart inverters used in small-scale solar deployments are available in draft form from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

NIST observes that when smart inverters are “configured to behave in a grid-friendly, supportive manner,” they assist the local electric utility in “addressing anomalies” on the electric grid.

But an improperly configured inverter, NIST says, “can respond in inappropriate ways that exacerbate anomalies,” and “a large number of misconfigured smart inverters could have a negative impact on a utility’s efforts to address anomalies.”

That raises the specter of a cyberattack, as NIST states that “if a malicious actor were able to deliberately misconfigure many smart inverters, grid stability and performance could be impacted.”

The draft guidelines recommend that manufacturers incorporate cybersecurity capabilities into their smart inverters. The guidelines are based on NIST’s baseline “internet of things” cybersecurity capabilities guidance, which NIST has made more specific to smart inverters.

How smart inverters communicate is a key focus of the draft guidelines, said Midhat Mafazy, regulatory program engineer with the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

The NIST draft guidelines note that smart inverters may communicate with the electric utility, third-party operators, the device manufacturer, or other devices in the local environment. Yet “this communication capability also provides an opportunity for cyberattack,” NIST said.

NIST gave several examples of ways to protect smart inverter communications from “malicious actors” while still allowing needed communications.

NIST also made a draft recommendation to disable unused features and capabilities that are not used in a particular device deployment, giving three examples: remote access protocols and interfaces, wireless communications, and “guest” access to smart inverter features or capabilities.

Mafazy said the draft guidelines do not explicitly state how smart inverters’ autonomous functions should be handled. Those autonomous functions can help regulate voltage on a distribution circuit, thereby boosting hosting capacity. Mafazy expressed hope that NIST’s final guidelines could clarify how those autonomous functions should be handled.

On a related issue, Mafazy pointed to the operational difficulty and cost of making changes to smart inverter settings on an already-deployed system, if changes are warranted and initiated by the utility. “This underscores the importance of activating and enabling voltage regulation functions as default during initial deployment,” he said.

NIST said that its recommended cybersecurity capabilities in smart inverters will enable smart inverter owners and installers to implement seven categories of cybersecurity guidelines.

NIST tested five smart inverters to determine whether their capabilities would enable owners and installers to meet the draft guidelines. NIST found, for example, that regarding the ability to disable unused features, only two of the five smart inverters tested had that ability.

Threat level

In a smart inverter vulnerability survey that NIST conducted in 2022, the agency identified 15 vulnerabilities to cyberattacks in 2021, and 30 more going further back in time. The survey used data from NIST’s National Vulnerability Database. “This research identified real cybersecurity concerns that the guidelines should address,” NIST stated.

The NIST draft guidelines are titled “Cybersecurity for smart inverters: Guidelines for residential and light commercial solar energy systems.” The agency has solicited comments on the draft guidelines and is preparing a final version of the guidelines.

Maine may design a distribution system operator to advance distributed energy resources Maine has hired a consulting firm to evaluate whether forming a distribution system operator could speed deployment of distributed energy resources and support other state goals. Consultants are reviewing how the approach is used in five other countries.

New platform vets residential solar salespeople An industry plagued by deceptive practices is now verifying salespeople via a platform called Recheck.

Summit Ridge to procure 800 MW of Qcells solar panels The recent agreement brings the total to 2 GW of solar modules that the community solar specialist will purchase from Qcells, mostly manufactured in its facility in Georgia.

More solar installations coming to U.S. military bases In a partnership with Duke Energy valued at an estimated $248 million, the U.S. Department of Defense will be the exclusive purchaser of all output generated by two new solar facilities, which will serve five military bases.

Siting solar projects for best environmental results A new white paper from Clearloop identifies key U.S. regions for best carbon displacement impact of new clean energy projects.

Top solar panel brands in reliability, quality, and performance Solar modules are evaluated in the Renewable Energy Test Center annual PV Module Index.

pv magazine interview: ‘In the next year, some of these guys are going to be bankrupt’ At Intersolar in Munich, pv magazine spoke with Jenny Chase, solar analyst at BloombergNEF, about the incredibly low polysilicon prices, massive overcapacity, and increasing consolidation. According to Chase, this year there will be enough polysilicon capacity to produce 1.1 TW of solar modules, but global module demand is expected to reach around 585 GW. 

Leading residential solar industry financers and the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) are partnering with the newly launched Recheck, a platform designed to create a registry of residential solar salespeople and vet their conduct.

Residential solar has long struggled with aggressive sales tactics that has led to negative customer experiences. Many installers outsource their sales efforts to a third party, which can create a disconnect between sales promises and installation realities.

The platform was launched by a consortium of the main players in U.S. residential solar finance, including Dividend Finance, Freedom Forever, GoodLeap, Mosaic, Palmetto,  Sungage Financial, Sunlight Financial, and Sunrun.

“A healthy solar industry is vital to consumers and the U.S. energy transition. Recheck is proud of its founding partners and is committed to building the tools to ensure long-term trust with consumers,” said Tim Trefren, Recheck co-founder and CEO.

Recheck creates an online registry of approved solar salespeople, issuing a Recheck ID that allows contractors, financiers, and technology platforms to confirm that their sales partners meet certification, licensing, and training requirements.

The platform marks a first-of-its-kind opportunity for solar finance, contractor, and technology partners to track sales conduct across the industry.

Recheck will also facilitate industry-wide data exchange across the platform. The data will businesses vet sales partners, prevent poor practices by unregistered salespeople, and identify individuals with a history of consumer protection violations that move from company to company.

“Solar remains America’s most popular form of energy and will be installed on 10 million homes by 2030. It’s our job to make sure the solar and storage industry is accountable to the millions of families that are putting their trust in us to power their lives,” said SEIA president and chief executive officer Abigail Ross Hopper.

Recheck founding partners will be part of an ongoing advisory board and have committed to driving the adoption of Recheck IDs within their platforms in 2024 and beyond.

Along with supporting the launch of Recheck, SEIA is developing industry wide standards for residential solar, with accreditation from the American National Standards Institute. SEIA is proactively tackling issues that build confidence among customers, regulators, investors, rating agencies, and other stakeholders. These standards will contribute assurance that solar and storage systems have been ethically, sustainably, and responsibly sourced, manufactured, transported, installed, operated, and recycled.

The Attorney General (AG) of Minnesota is taking legal action against GoodLeap, Sunlight Financial, Solar Mosaic and Dividend Solar Finance for allegedly inflating the cost of residential solar projects during financing. These finance companies are accused of selling over $200 million worth of residential solar projects from 2017 through 2023, inflating them by approximately $35 million by concealing fees within the financing agreements.

The state is seeking an injunction to halt these practices, along with the proper finance charge disclosures, refunds to affected consumers, and the payment of civil penalties.

Sunlight Financial filed for bankruptcy last year after continuing to offer low-interest rate loans despite rising interest rates.

The complaint summarizes the allegations: “Defendants deceive consumers by charging a hidden and costly upfront fee that they add into the stated price of each financed system while falsely telling consumers that the inflated price only reflects the system’s cost rather than financing.”

Key allegations include:

• Concealment of the upfront fee from consumers.
• Omission of the fee in sales proposals and finance cost disclosures.
• Prohibition of Minnesota solar companies from identifying and explaining the fee in their marketing and when offering alternative payment options. Finance companies are also alleged to have pressured solar companies to raise their cash prices to align with their financed prices.

The key aspect of the sales included very low interest rates combined with incentives based on the project price, making loan payments competitive with electricity rates. The instant loan approval, zero cash down, and minimal paperwork requirements allowed residential contractors to quickly facilitate high sales volumes.

Some have compared the streamlined loan process to the ‘no doc’ mortgages of the 2000s subprime housing crisis.

For some customers who did not scrutinize the fine print, the expected electricity savings were negated. The inflated loan amounts meant homeowners received higher tax credits, which needed to be applied to their bills. For those who did not follow through, or were ineligible for the full tax credit, the loan payments increased significantly. This happened after 18 months when the loan re-amortized at a higher amount that included the tax credit.

The upfront dealer fees varied between 10% and 30%, with some as high as 36% of the project, according to the AG. Over 5,000 individual systems were financed by the four companies during the period under review.

However, the four companies being sued did not make the loans; instead, they provided their financial tools to various local sales and installation companies. Notable among these were “All Energy Solar (2,311 sales financed by Defendants), Everlight Solar (1,742 sales financed by Defendants), Avolta Power (493 sales financed by Defendants), and Sun Badger Solar (307 sales financed by Defendants).”

The filing from the AG detailed the volume of loans made by each defendant:

• From 2018 through 2023, GoodLeap made at least $33,045,208.68 in loans to 853 Minnesota consumers. GoodLeap’s average fee is 19.32% of each loan. The average amount charged to consumers and added to their loan balance is $7,552.19. GoodLeap has charged at least $6,442,014.47 in fees on Minnesota consumers between 2017 and 2023.
• From 2017 through 2023, Sunlight Financial made at least $75,077,388.11 in loans to 2,162 Minnesota consumers.  Sunlight Financial’s average upfront fee is 21.4% of each Minnesota consumer’s loan amount. The average amount charged to Minnesota consumers and added to their balance is $6,285.79. Sunlight Financial has charged a total of at least $13,589,869.31 in upfront fees to Minnesota consumers between 2017 and 2023.
• From 2019 through 2023, Solar Mosaic made at least $85,477,542.01 in loans to 2,147 Minnesota consumers. Solar Mosaic’s average upfront fee is 17.6% of each consumer’s loan amount. The average amount charged to consumers and added to their loan balance is $5,842.59. Solar Mosaic has charged a total of at least $12,666,727.44 in upfront fees to Minnesota consumers between 2017 and 2023.
• Through 2023, Dividend made at least $14,104,831 in loans to 257 Minnesota consumers. The average amount of Dividend’s upfront fee is 18.8% of each borrower’s loan amount (including a small number of loans with 0% fees). The average amount charged to borrowers and added to their loan balance is $9,041.69. Dividend has charged a total of at least $2,323,714.32 in upfront fees to Minnesota consumers.

The market’s finance dynamics have shifted significantly due to these loans. Following prolonged low interest rates after the Great Recession in 2008, these companies expanded their market share against cash and third-party ownership in the United States.

According to Zoë Gaston, Principal Analyst of U.S. Distributed Solar at Wood Mackenzie Renewables & Power, the loan segment, after peaking in 2022 at nearly 70%, market share fell by 6% in 2023 and is expected to decline further in 2024. Gaston noted that, “the segment will start to recover in 2025 but will not gain market share until 2027, when it starts growing faster than the overall residential solar market.”

Wood Mackenzie forecasts that third-party ownership will fill the gap left by long-term loan products, achieving a 41% market share by 2026.

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Republican members sent a joint letter to the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office (LPO), on December 7, 2023. They expressed “outrage” over a reported incident of an elderly man allegedly being pressured into a 25-year solar lease by a salesperson. The joint letter is being used to highlight the aggressive or potentially misleading sales tactics that are sometimes employed by contractors of national residential solar companies.

This incident reflects a complex situation. Republicans in Congress are seeking to undermine the transition to local, clean electricity by signaling “outrage”, meanwhile, solar sales companies are grappling with the challenges posed by commission-motivated private contractors, whose sales tactics strain the industry’s reputation.

Residential solar companies have had lawsuits initiated by state attorneys general in Arizona, New Mexico, and Connecticut, largely due to aggressive sales tactics. These same in-home sales techniques prompted California to mandate a comprehensive 24-page Solar Consumer Protection Guide in 2021.

The Joint Letter, addressed to the LPO’s department head, Jigar Shah, specifically addresses Sunnova’s recently awarded $3 billion loan guarantee. This significant loan from the LPO is earmarked to finance up to 90% of “Project Hestia.” The project’s aim is to broaden access to solar and virtual power plant (VPP) services, particularly for disadvantaged communities that typically struggle to secure financing for residential projects.

Sunnova stands out in the industry for integrating individual residential solar and storage installations into the broader power grid. Despite the initial rejection of their Califlornia microutility, its innovative approach is recognized as cutting edge, and will set precedent for future energy deployments.

The joint letter details allegations of unethical sales practices of a Sunnova contractor. It describes an instance of alleged exploitation: “a door-to-door Sunnova salesman sold her father—who she characterized as in hospice care—a $60,000 solar system for his mobile home shortly before his death.” It also references complaints from a 2019 USA Today article regarding Sunnova’s expanding market in Puerto Rico.

The Committee requests all documents related to Sunnova’s loan approval, previous sales complaints, consumer protection measures, and the company’s financial status. They also inquire about LPO’s oversight of Sunnova’s sales practices.

By the end of the third quarter of 2023, Sunnova had amassed approximately 386,000 customers, adding 37,000 customers in the third quarter alone. The company anticipates that they will have added 135,000 to 145,000 new customers in 2023.

In response to the Committee, Sunnova outlined their position in a letter to investors on December 11, 2023, reaffirming their “commitment to Project Hestia, ethical business practices, and customer service.” The letter cited Sunnova’s role as the primary risk-bearer in the $3 billion loan, its expanded service team, the offering of 25-year warranties, and the operation of a “state-of-the-art Global Command Center” to oversee its numerous solar projects.  

The company specifically mentioned the expansion of its support services in Puerto Rico, where the Global Command Center plays a crucial role, reflecting the island’s growing importance in their business strategy.

Regarding the LPO’s reaction, while no official statement has been released, Jigar Shah of the LPO expressed support for Project Hestia and Sunnova in general via a tweet:

LPO firmly stands behind Project Hestia, which will expand solar access to up to 115k US homes. We held @SunnovaEnergy to the highest standards in our due diligence, which they’ve met with enthusiasm since day 1, while implementing new customer service programs.

— Jigar Shah (@JigarShahDC) December 12, 2023

pv magazine USA reached out to Kelsey Hultberg, Sunnova’s executive vice president of communications and sustainability, with several queries about the company’s handling of customer support challenges over the past year.

Nikola Corporation announced a voluntary recall of approximately 209 of its Class 8 Tre battery-electric vehicles, following the preliminary findings of an investigation conducted by Exponent into its battery packs.

The company said Aug. 11 that it was in the process of filing the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and will be holding off on selling new battery-electric vehicles for the time being. Nikola manufactures heavy-duty commercial battery-electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles, and is headquartered in Arizona. 

On June 23, Nikola reported in a tweet that a fire had affected multiple battery electric trucks at its Phoenix headquarters, and that the company suspected foul play as a vehicle was seen in the area just before the incident. However, the company now says that internal and third-party evaluations, as well as hours of video footage review, indicate that it’s unlikely the fire was caused by foul play or other external factors. 

Instead, the company reported that following an Aug. 10 presentation from third-party investigator Exponent, it found that a coolant leak in one lithium-ion battery pack likely caused the fire. It said this conclusion was corroborated by a “minor thermal incident” that impacted one battery pack on a truck at its Coolidge, Arizona plant.

“Internal investigations from Nikola’s safety and engineering teams indicate a single supplier component within the battery pack as the likely source of the coolant leak and efforts are underway to provide a field remedy in the coming weeks,” Nikola said.

The company said that so far, only two battery packs out of the more than 3,100 packs on trucks produced until now have experienced an issue. 

Nikola said that while its battery-electric trucks can stay in operation, it is encouraging its customers and dealers to take certain actions to ensure their safety. These include ensuring that the “main battery disconnect” switch is always on, to enable real-time vehicle monitoring, and trying to park trucks outside so that they are better connected to Nikola’s monitoring system.  

“We stated from the beginning that as soon as our investigations were concluded we would provide an update, and we will continue our transparency as we learn more,” said Steve Girsky, CEO of Nikola.

Girsky replaced Nikola’s previous President and CEO Michael Lohscheller, whom the company announced was stepping down from his position on Aug. 4. The company reported that Lohscheller opted to step down because of a family health matter and will continue in an advisory capacity with Nikola until the end of September. 

Separately, Nikola began producing its hydrogen fuel cell electric truck on July 31, and had already received orders for over 200 trucks that it intends to start delivering in September. On the hydrogen front, the company was recently granted $58.2 million in different grants from regulators to build out a network of hydrogen refueling stations for heavy-duty trucks. 

The company said that the voluntary recall will not affect its hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, which have a different design. 

Ohio tightens screws on large solar facilities  The Ohio Power Siting Board has unveiled new regulations after its five year rule review, including 350 foot setbacks, sound regulations, and an underground drilling contingency plan, addressing the state’s extensive network of fracking pipes.

Arizona sues Vision Solar and lead generator Solar Xchange Arizona’s attorney general is suing Vision Solar and Solar Xchange for alleged utility impersonation, Do Not Call breaches, incentive misrepresentation, and misleading finance processes that had customers paying for solar loans before their bills were reduced.

Private investments in clean energy and manufacturing top $270 billion  While the U.S. has the financial capacity, technology and human capital, the question is whether government policy will allow for the clean energy infrastructure to be built out fast enough to achieve clean energy dominance.

California puts multi-meter rooftop solar at risk in proposed decision  The California Public Utilities Commission has returned with another proposed decision to stack the deck against rooftop solar.

GAF Timberline solar shingles recalled for fire hazard  The solar roof provider has recalled the product following property damage from thermal incidents.

Industry trade association Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) announced it has been approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an accredited standards development organization.

The accreditation empowers SEIA to convene industry stakeholders to develop national standards for materials, products, processes and services in the U.S. solar and energy storage industry.

Through the development of national standards, SEIA will promote open and efficient markets, working to reduce costs and minimize risks for the industry. Standards encourage the use of best practices across the supply chain, supporting a safe and rapid deployment of projects. Standards also foster shared expectations and trust among customers, businesses, regulators, investors, and other stakeholders.

The organization said it will pursue standards that improve supply chain traceability, consumer protection, and end-of-life or performance period management.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive officer, SEIA said:

Strong national standards are the bedrock of any successful industry. Through strong leadership and SEIA’s new ANSI accreditation, we will help the industry proactively and responsibly manage its growth, building confidence among solar customers, businesses and key stakeholders alike. We look forward to creating new industry standards that will propel the industry forward and create a culture of compliance, helping to address PV recycling and provide assurances of ethical practices throughout the solar supply chain.

SEIA is welcoming industry collaboration for the development of standards. It also offers voting memberships in a Standards Technical Committee, enabling participation in the development, review, approval, and publication of SEIA standards. Industry members are also able to publicly review and comment on standards that SEIA publishes. More information on these activities can be found on the SEIA website.

Standards will be developed under a multi-phase consensus process through a diverse coalition of SEIA members and non-members representing producers, users, and general interest categories. The organization’s first Standards Technical Committee will focus on supply chain traceability and said it is planning to release its first American National Standard in early 2024.

The U.S. Department of Treasury, Department of Energy and the Internal Revenue Service released final guidance on energy security and investments into coal communities and underserved communities as part of the energy communities incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The Treasury and IRS released guidance that provides information about the application process and technical guidance for the program on energy communities as well as the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit program (48C) of the Internal Revenue Code from February 2023.

Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit

Under the IRA, $10 billion in total funding will be made available under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit program. Congress required that at least $4 billion be reserved for projects in communities with closed coal mines or retired coal power plants. The initial funding round will include $4 billion, with about $1.6 billion reserved for energy projects sited in these designated coal communities.

To apply, taxpayers should submit concept papers describing the proposed project. Concept paper submissions will be accepted starting June 30, 2023, and the deadline for concept papers will be July 31, 2023. Beginning today, taxpayers can access information and materials for submissions.

More information, including a 48C mapping tool and an upcoming informational webinar, is available on the Department of Energy’s 48C webpage. 

Wally Adeyemo, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury: President Biden’s Investing in America agenda ensures all communities benefit from the growth of the clean energy economy by driving investment in areas of the country that have often been overlooked and left behind. These investments will improve the nation’s energy security and create good-paying jobs in vital fields like clean-energy manufacturing and critical materials processing. They will also allow for existing energy infrastructure to be retooled for the clean energy economy. All this work will contribute to lower energy costs for families who have struggled to pay their utility bills.

Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit

Treasury and IRS also released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit program under Section 48E of the Internal Revenue Code, which was established on February 13, 2023.

The rulemaking includes an application process and technical guidance for low-income communities program, which provides an additional 20% Investment Tax Credit adder for up to 1.8 GW of annual new solar and wind energy projects (with maximum size of 5 MW) that are located in designated low-income communities or otherwise serving low-income populations.

“Every community can benefit from President Biden’s agenda to Invest in America through the revitalization of domestic manufacturing, the strengthening of domestic clean energy supply chains and the modernization of our nation’s industrial sector,” said David Turk, Deputy Secretary of Energy. “The guidance announced today will help usher in investments that will further spur the creation of quality jobs in every pocket of our country, while strengthening our energy resilience.”

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 defines “energy communities” with respect to certain types of U.S. government statistical data areas, such as “census tracts,” “metropolitan statistical areas,” and “non-metropolitan statistical areas.” However, the Act did not specify which vintages of these areas should be used by taxpayers. Initial guidance provided by the Treasury in April clarifies which data sets will apply, and the DOE’s mapping tool reflects those data sets in a user-friendly way.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that households that are considered energy insecure, or those that have the inability to adequately meet basic household energy costs, are paying more for electricity than their wealthier counterparts. 

On average in the United States in 2020, households were billed about $1.04 per square foot for all energy sources. For homes that did not report energy insecurity, that average was $0.98 per square foot, while homes with energy insecurity issues paid an average of $1.24 per square foot for energy. This means that U.S. residents that need the most support on their energy bills are stuck with costs 27% higher than their neighbors on square-foot-basis.

EIA said energy-insecure households have reduced or forgone basic necessities to pay energy bills, kept their houses at unsafe temperatures because of energy cost concerns, or been unable to repair heating or cooling equipment because of cost.

In 2020, households with income less than $10,000 a year were billed an average of $1.31 per square foot for energy, while households making $100,000 or more were billed an average of $0.96 per square foot, said EIA. Renters paid considerably more ($1.28 per square foot) than owners ($0.98 per square foot). There were also considerable differences between regions, ethnic groups and races, and insulation levels, as seen below.

The energy transition toward renewables like solar has offered price stability, but thus far energy-insecure communities have relatively been left behind. A recent Berkeley Lab report, Residential Solar-Adopter Income and Demographic Trends, indicates that even though the rate of solar adoption among low-income residents is increasing (from 5% in 2010 to 11% in 2021), that segment of energy consumers remains under-represented among solar adopters, relative to its share of the population.

Community solar efforts

As such, the United States is targeting communities most impacted by energy costs that have not benefitted from the transition, highlighting “Energy Communities” that are eligible for an additional 10% tax credit through funds made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Additionally, a push for community solar development is taking place nationwide to extend access to affordable solar energy to renters and other residents that aren’t able to leverage finances to invest in predictable, low-cost solar. The Biden Administration set a goal this year to sign up 5 million community solar households, achieving $1 billion in bill savings by 2025. The community solar model only represents about 8% of the total distributed solar capacity in the nation. This target would entail a jump from 3 GW installed capacity to 20 GW by the target year. The Department of Energy estimates community solar subscribers save an average of 20% on their bills.

California this year passed AB 2316, the Community Renewable Energy Act takes aim at four acute problems in the state’s power market: reliability, rates, climate and equity. The law creates a community renewable energy program, including community solar-plus-storage, to overcome access barriers for nearly half of Californians who rent or have low incomes. Community solar typically involves customers subscribing to an off-site solar facility, receiving a utility bill credit for the power it generates.

“Community renewable energy is a proven powerful tool to help close California’s clean energy gap, bringing much needed relief to millions struggling with high housing costs and utility debt,” said Alexis Sutterman, energy equity program manager at the California Environmental Justice Alliance.

The program has energy equity baked into its structure, working to make sure Californians of all income levels participate in the benefits of the energy transition. Not only does it open solar access to renters, the law ensures that at least 51% of subscribers are low-income customers, which is expected to make projects eligible for a 10% tax credit adder under the IRA.

“The money’s on the table now,” said Jeff Cramer, president and chief executive of the Coalition for Community Solar Access. “While there are groups pushing for solar access for all, and states with strong legislation, there are other pockets of interest in surprising places in the United States. For example, Louisiana has no policy for community solar or support for low-income residents going solar but the city of New Orleans has its own utility commission with a community solar program. In Nebraska, forward-looking co-operatives have created community solar projects.

Community solar markets are active in 22 states, with more expected to come online in the future. However, the market is expected to require strong community outreach efforts to foster trust and gain subscribers.

“There is a distrust of community solar initially in LMI communities as many have been burned before by retail energy false promises,” said Eric LaMora, executive director, community solar, Nautilus Solar on a panel at the Solar Energy Industries Association Finance, Tax, and Buyers seminar. “People are suspicious but there really are no hooks with community solar.”

LMI residents are leery to provide tax records or much documents at all in order to sign up for community solar, LaMora said. “We were surprised to see less of a default rate with LMI residents. We attribute this to the fact that they see significant savings on their electric bill, making it easier to pay each month,” he said.

Electrical standards provider UL Solutions has released a new cybersecurity protocol, UL 2941, which covers distributed energy and inverter-based resources.  Developed with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), UL 2941 provides testable requirements for energy storage and generation technologies on the distribution grid. The new cybersecurity protocol provides a framework for photovoltaic inverters, electric vehicle chargers, wind turbines, fuel cells and other distributed resources operating within a grid interconnection.

The new UL requirement prioritizes cybersecurity standards for power systems that deal with high penetration inverter-based resources, including those interfacing with bulk power systems for periods of instantaneous high wind, solar and hybrid/storage generation.

UL 2941 will also promote cybersecurity measures across all new inverter-based resources (IBR) and distributed energy resource (DER) systems.

“The publication of UL 2941 is a milestone toward securing the distributed generation industry,” said Danish Saleem, senior energy systems cybersecurity engineer, NREL. “Equipment manufacturers, asset owners, regulators and government officials now have an established baseline for strengthening the security of their devices such as network-connected IBRs, monitoring devices, and parts of IBR systems that provide software-based and firmware-based controls.”

NREL is receiving additional support from the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office to support the new standard’s development.  With SETO, NREL will receive formal industry feedback on the listed requirements, develop test procedures, and perform beta testing of devices under the UL 2941 standard, Saleem said.

Products complying with UL 2941 will be eligible for UL certification. The testing is intended to be an add-on service for inverters, complementing UL 1741, the current standard for power inverters, converters, controllers and interconnection system equipment for distributed energy resources.

Following an increase in ransomware attacks in the U.S. energy markets in recent years and the need for new distributed energy systems following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, there has been an in flux of new DER resources tied to the grid in the U.S. and Europe.

A 2022 report by SETO called “Securing Solar for the Grid” called on national laboratories and industry participants to propose cybersecurity requirements for distributed energy resources. A DOE report on the topic calls for the DER market to engage in such discussions.

As deployment of rooftop solar, batteries and other DERs increases, the potential damage from a cyberattack on DERs also increases, according to the report. DERs now total 90 GW of capacity in the U.S., and are expected to grow to 380 GW by 2025, the DOE said.

In two potential scenarios of a cyber attack, an attacker could use ransomware to take control of multiple DERs, or could use a supply chain attack on an aggregator, or on another party that sends directions or updates to DERs, to influence the operation of the DERs, the DOE report noted.

In two other scenarios, a “botnet” could infect enough DERs with malware to enable the attacker to create unanticipated power swings on the grid, or a “worm” could spread from one DER to a higher-level distributed energy resource management (DERM) system, which could then send a false command to many DERs and instigate power instability.

U.S. on track to make it only halfway towards 2030 Paris Agreement targets  The U.S. may only reach 25% to 38% of carbon emissions reductions below 2005 by 2030, falling well short of the 50% to 52% required by the agreement, said the Energy Information Administration.

Minimizing EV impact on the grid  MIT researchers have found that strategic placement of EV charging stations and initiating charging at delayed times can mitigate or eliminate daily EV charging demand and solar over-capacity.

Used and resold solar module pricing aligns with general market EnergyBin released its annual PV Module Price Index, which shows that module prices have come down since they peaked in 2022, but are still more expensive than they were in 2020.

Energy Warehouse component achieves UL Safety certification UL 1973 is an industry standard recognition for stationary energy storage systems, which confirms the module’s quality, resilience and ability to operate safely and effectively in a variety of conditions. The S200 modules power ESS systems the Energy Warehouse and Energy Center product lines.

Entergy Louisiana seeks approval for 3 GW of solar  The request recently filed with the Louisiana Public Service Commission to add an additional 3 GW of solar power to its generation portfolio is on top of the nearly 225 MW requested earlier in the month.

Made-in-the-USA solar panels could cut emissions by 30%, says study Reshoring crystalline silicon PV panel manufacturing to the United States by 2035 could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% and energy consumption by 13% from 2020 levels, according to scientists from Cornell University.

Vision Solar preyed on vulnerable and built without licenses, says Connecticut  Less than nine months after Vision Solar received a contractor’s license, complaints to the Connecticut Attorney General’s office were pouring in.

Midsummer develops 24.9% efficient 4T tandem perovskite-CIGS solar cell  Midsummer and researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), say that their new tandem PV cell is suitable for the company’s Duo production equipment, which makes 56 mm x 156 mm CIGS cells on a flexible stainless steel substrate.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has filed a lawsuit against Vision Solar, citing numerous violations committed by the company. Vision Solar, a newcomer to Connecticut, was granted a Home Improvement Contractor license in December 2020, but starting in August 2021, the Attorney General’s office began to receive the first of 14 unique complaints against the company.

The legal complaint can be found here. 

The attorney general’s office states that “Vision Solar preyed on low-income, elderly, and disabled homeowners, pressuring them into unaffordable loans for solar panels that in some cases were never activated”. The company’s in-home sales tactics included overstaying permitted hours, pressuring customers into immediate signatures, falsely claiming that signatures were for “pre-approval” only, and failing to deliver contracts to customers. The attorney general also alleged that Vision Solar made sales pitches to individuals with language or intellectual challenges who were unable to make informed purchasing decisions.

Vision Solar is also accused of misrepresenting the tax benefits of solar panel installation to those with no tax liability. The attorney general further suggested that Vision Solar applied for solar permits without proper licenses and may have used the license of an electrician no longer employed by the company to apply for some of those permits. Vision Solar is also alleged to have installed solar projects without a licensed electrician.

Vision Solar’s online reviews tell a similar story. With 176 reviews, Vision Solar received 1.79 out of 5 stars on SolarReviews.com. They earned an “F” with 1.21 out of 5 stars from the Better Business Bureau, with 203 reviews. On Yelp! the company earned only 1.5 out of 5 stars, and on Angie’s List (now just ‘Angi’) they received the site’s lowest possible score, 1 out of 5.

In 2020, Vision Solar sued Momentum Solar for trade secret violations. Momentum Solar itself was sued for racist and discriminatory actions. Online searches reveal multiple lawsuits against Vision Solar in New Jersey for violation of the Do Not Call list.

Despite the numerous complaints against the company, as of March 20, 2023, Vision Solar’s license is still listed as “active”.

Thursday night, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was put into receivership by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). As part of standard practice when a bank collapses, the FDIC created a new bank – the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara – making available account deposits of up to $250,000.

Sunday evening, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) announced that all deposits were going to be secured, and available to depositors on Monday morning. SVB has locations in California and Massachusetts.

The bank’s $209 billion in assets make it the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, and the 16th largest in the United States. The bank’s challenges, some of which were known, accelerated when it announced a sale of $21 billion in assets at a 9% loss in order to make sure it could still cover all assets.

This action led to multiple hyper-connected business groups to quickly withdraw $42 billion in assets. Amongst the leading groups pulling their capital was Peter Thiel’s Founder Fund. Reports of thousand-strong WhatsApp groups telling people to pull their cash circulated.

A second bank also collapsed, Signature Bank in New York, and was also being managed by the Fed in a similar manner as SVB.

Solar development finance

The bank’s website stated they had a hand in financing 62% of community solar projects as of March 31, 2022. A Google search verifies a definite relationship.

pv magazine USA has reached out to multiple community solar involved companies to get their reactions to these events.

Industry reactions 

Over the weekend, publicly-traded residential solar companies Sunrun, Sunnova Energy and others issued statements on SVB’s failure. 

Sunrun said SVB was a lender on two of its credit facilities amongst many banks, but said SVB was less than 15% of its total hedging facilities. Sunrun does not anticipate significant exposure. Sunrun does hold cash deposits with SVB totaling nearly $80 million, however, the Fed has stated these are protected.

Sunnova stated its exposure to SVB was negligible because it does not hold cash deposits or securities with the financial group. However, one of its subsidiaries is part of a credit facility where SVB serves as a lender.

Stem, an energy storage development company, said it estimates less than 5% of cash deposits and short-term investments could be impacted by SVB’s closure, though the company holds no credit facilities with the bank.

Sunrun’s stock lost 12.4% in value since SVB’s collapse late last week, while Sunnova and Stem were down 11.4% and 10.4% respectively.

Other energy industry comments were made, mostly with little to effects announced.

On Sunday, before the Fed announcement, reports were circulating that hedge funds were offering to buy depositor accounts for 60% to 80% of their value. The report noted that the bids represented how much the “uninsured deposits will ultimately be recovered once the bank’s assets are sold or wound down”.

On March 9, a few days before the failure, Forbes announced that SVB was its 20th ranked bank on their annual list of America’s Best Banks.

First Republic Bank’s stock is massively down this Monday morning, March 13, 2023. As well, general markets are down, along with bank sector stocks.

Solar United Neighbors (SUN), a Washington, D.C.-based solar nonprofit organization, announced the launch of its Community Solar Project platform, a free resource for consumer education.

Community solar, sometimes called shared solar, is pitched as a way for homeowners, businesses and other organizations like nonprofits to invest in the benefits of clean energy when they have unsuitable conditions for rooftop or ground-mounted installations.

Either through buying or leasing a portion of an off-site solar project, customers typically receive a utility bill credit for the electricity generated by their share of the community solar system, similar to the way rooftop solar net billing works.

“People are searching for ways to access locally-generated renewable energy and this tool will help expand access to community solar through education and consumer empowerment. Community solar also offers low- and middle-income households the opportunity to access the cost-saving benefits of distributed solar energy without having to install solar themselves,” said Corey Ramsden, vice president of Go Solar Programs, Solar United Neighbors.

This class of solar projects is also hailed as an opportunity to ensure a more equitable energy transition. Residential rooftop solar has been historically adopted by higher-income customers, though that trend has been softening recently.

A National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study estimated that nearly half of all U.S. households and businesses are unfit to host rooftop solar arrays. There are many reasons why one might invest in community solar instead of rooftop solar, including:  

• Unsuitable space – too much shading or lack of solar irradiance, improper roof size, material, structure, or unsuitable ground-mount area
• Financial reasons – rooftop solar too large of an upfront investment, lack of credit score for no-upfront cost programs like power purchase agreements, lack of supportive incentives for rooftop solar
• Living situation – renters, or those in restrictive homeowner association areas (HOA)

“I have a small roof. It can’t fit enough solar panels to cover my yearly electricity usage, so I subscribe to community solar for the rest,” said Ramsden.

Community solar is currently available in 20 states and Washington, D.C., as a solar subscriber option. SUN’s vendor-neutral resource offers an overview of how community solar works, what to consider when shopping for subscriptions, and where projects can be found.

National partnership

The Department of Energy (DOE) is promoting the buildout of community solar through the National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP). NCSP, along with the Biden Administration, set a goal to achieve the equivalent of 5 million households subscribed to community solar projects by 2025, leading to $1 billion in bill savings based on an assumption of a 20% bill discount.

The goal represents a 700% increase in total community solar deployment, growing from 3 GW in 2020 to 20 GW in 2025. NCSP works to achieve these goals through engaging stakeholders, providing technical assistance, and collaboration on addressing common development barriers through sharing resources and information.

A full list of NCSP and affiliate resources can be found here.

Michigan PSC rejects anti-rooftop solar policy The state’s utility regulator was not convinced by DTE Energy’s argument that distributed energy causes a cost shift, and the utility improperly modeled the benefits of distributed generation.

UConn receives $4.4 million solar-plus-batteries predictive resilience grant The University of Connecticut’s Eversource Energy Center will develop technologies to shorten power outages.

Solar-powered Sion EV to feature enhanced driver-assistance systems from Continental Sono’s first Sion models are planned to be priced at $25k, with production slated to begin in the second half of 2023.

Powin, BlackRock start working on world’s largest battery Grid-scale battery specialist Powin and BlackRock have started work on a 909 MW/1,915 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Australia; Construction is set to begin in 2023.

CSI Energy Solutions signs 2.6 GWh battery agreement with UBS in North America Batteries under the agreement utilize CSI Energy’s SolBank utility-scale energy storage systems and will be deployed in 2024-25.

Longi claims world’s highest efficiency for silicon solar cells Longi Green Energy said it achieved a 26.81% efficiency rating for a heterojunction solar cell, as confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH).

The International Code Council (ICC) submitted preliminary results approving two proposals from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) that designate solar-plus-storage projects as Risk Category 2 infrastructure.

Without the SEIA proposals S79-22 and S81-22, the proposal from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) under S76-22 was required to meet Risk Category 4 requirements, a more stringent risk category typically reserved for hospitals, fire, police and emergency services, buildings and infrastructure.

The SEIA proposals under S79-22 and S81-22 carve out a special category for the approval of solar and energy storage facilities.

“The extreme and overly burdensome code measures that would have been required under the FEMA proposal could have stifled clean energy growth without improving grid resilience,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA. “The resulting effect, whether intended or not, would have been a disastrous decrease in renewable energy projects while we aggressively strive to meet important climate goals.”

Prior to the SEIA proposals, more than 315 clean energy companies had called on the ICC to reject the FEMA S76-22 proposal that could have stifled U.S. clean energy progress.

According to SEIA, it balances a significant increase in the structural requirements for solar facilities with enough breathing room for project construction to move forward. FEMA officials themselves confirmed they support the proposals put forward by SEIA and supported by the Distributed Wind Energy Association (DWEA), according to oral testimony on Sept. 15 and a voter’s guide that FEMA sent to voters on Oct. 13.

(To access the Oct. 17 letter to clean energy groups in opposition of S-76-22, click here. To access the September SEIA factsheet click here.)

Panasonic announced a new set of warranty terms for its solar and energy storage products. The coverage, called the EverVolt AllGuard All System warranty is a comprehensive warranty covering product, performance, and labor across major system components. 

This includes 25 years for Panasonic solar panels, 25 years for racking systems, 10 years for inverters, and 10 years for Panasonic EverVolt 2.0 energy storage system. Panasonic’s solar technology is backed by 40 years of research and development.

“With the EverVolt AllGuard All System Warranty, we can uniquely provide homeowners a broader range of protection that covers their entire solar and energy storage system to enhance their investment. Home battery storage is gaining popularity among homeowners looking for independence from the power grid and is now an integral part of the solar electricity system. With our warranty covering product, performance output, and parts and labor, they can rest assured that their solar energy investment will be fully protected.” said Mukesh Sethi, director, solar and energy storage, Panasonic Eco Systems 

To qualify for the warranty, the equipment must be installed by a Panasonic authorized solar installer or authorized EverVolt storage installer. The inverter warranty is solely for Enphase microinverters purchased from Panasonic, and the racking warranty applies to Unirac and IronRidge racking systems. 

EV battery factory 

Last month, Panasonic announced it plans a $4 billion U.S. electric vehicle battery factory in Kansas City. The Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas City Area Development Council and its partners shared that the company’s plans create a need for up to 4,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. Panasonic has identified a site in De Soto, Kansas for the project, pending approval by Panasonic’s board of directors. 

“With the increased electrification of the automotive market, expanding battery production in the US is critical to help meet demand,” said Kazuo Tadanobu, president, CEO of Panasonic Energy. “Given our leading technology and depth of experience, we aim to continue driving growth of the lithium-ion battery industry and accelerating towards a net-zero emissions future.”  

More than 1 billion customers use Panasonic products every day, generating 86 million tons of CO2 emissions based on electricity consumption figures. This amounts to approximately 110 million tons of CO2 emissions across our entire value chain, a number that is equivalent to about 1% of total emissions from global electricity consumption. The company has entered an initiative to become net-zero in its business operations by 2030 and sets further goals for its sustainability by 2050. 

A class action lawsuit filed against Sanyo and Panasonic was settled last year with the ruling coming down to the solar panels not generating the electricity as projected, due to a physical defect. The panels were manufactured and sold by Sanyo, but later settled by Panasonic via the class action lawsuit in 2019.

The lawsuit suggests that a series of Sanyo solar panels would delaminate on the front side of the solar panel, greatly affecting the electricity generation. The law firm’s press release notes:

The solar panels in question are the model series HIP-xxxBA2, BA3 and BA5. A specification page of the HIP-XXX-BA3 series can be found here. The specification page notes its copyright date is August 10, 2006.

The lawsuit’s website hosts several documents, but the filings note that since the settlement happened behind closed doors, there are no details on the discussions that took place or facts that were revealed. The only technical information describes when delamination counts, and doesn’t count.

Solar panels must show visible “delamination” in order to be eligible for payment under the settlement. This includes one or more adjacent sections of circular delamination where each section is 25 mm or greater and was not caused by external damage. Linear or dot delamination is not covered by the settlement.

To receive benefits, a claim must be received either prior to December 31, 2029 or no more than twenty years after having purchased the solar panels. Panasonic, who owned the Sanyo product line at the time of the suit, can choose to either pay solar module buyers a prorated depreciated dollar amount (based on the original purchase price), or replace the solar panels with new or refurbished products.

Multiple references suggested that the solar panels cost about $700 each when originally sold.

One fact is completely transparent, and that’s who made money from this class action suit. The plaintiff, Richard Ziccarello, the individual who represented the class action lawsuit, was awarded $5,000. Richard can also submit for a refund on the damage to his own solar panel system.

The law firm representing Richard was awarded $1.745 million in attorneys fees and costs.

This was amended on July 27, 2022 as the lawsuit had been settled previously. The information was obtained from topclassactions.com.

The pv magazine USA tour of solar incentives now takes us to our second stop in the DMV: Maryland, which, like its neighbor, Delaware, is one of the most densely-populated states in the country.

Similarly to Delaware, Maryland generates less than 5% of its electricity from solar resources, however this has more to do with the state’s higher population than it does a lack of commitment to solar, at least historically. Maryland, thus far, has installed roughly 1.5 GW of solar, good for 18th in the country, according to data from Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). 

Maryland’s strong start to its solar commitment has slowed down considerably since its peak in 2016, and the state is only expected to install just over 1 GW of solar in the next five years, which currently projects to be 31st in the nation over that time, according to SEIA.

In April, the Maryland Legislature passed the Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022, which speeds up Maryland’s current goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 40% of 2006 levels to 60% by 2031, and it establishes 2045 as the state’s goal for becoming carbon neutral. While Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has said he won’t veto the bill, he won’t sign it either, choosing instead to let it pass on its own.

The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) called the Act “one of the nation’s most robust climate and clean energy policies”, and said it’s legislation that other states can model as it “meets the moment and puts us on track for a sustainable, equitable future.”

The majority of solar capacity installed in Maryland has come through residential projects, so let’s take a look at some of the policies driving residential solar adoption in the Old Line State.

Residential solar

In addition to the federal investment tax credit of 26% for the cost of equipment installed, homeowners in Maryland who choose to go solar are able to sell their excess generation back to the grid at the full retail electricity rate, as part of the state’s strong net metering policy.

Net metering is available to all customers throughout the state until the aggregate capacity of all net-metered systems reaches 3 GW, up from the old peak of 1.5 GW. Net metered system size is set at 2 MW cap, though customers that use electrical service for agriculture may aggregate all of their meters to be served by a single project.

Residential solar systems in Maryland are fully exempt from both state and local county property taxes. Maryland also offers a statewide Residential Clean Energy Grant Program, which provides grants to homeowners who install a number of renewable generation technologies, including solar systems. Administered by the Maryland Energy Administration, homeowners who install a residential solar system of at least 1 kW in capacity are eligible for a rebate of up to $1,000.

C&I initiatives

Like residential customers, commercial and industrial (C&I) customers in Maryland also have access to the state’s strong net metering policy, so long as their installations remain under 2 MW and do not generate more than 200% of the property’s electrical needs.

C&I customers also have access to grants for installing solar systems over parking lots with EV chargers. Such customers must install a minimum of 75 kW of solar canopies over the parking lot with a minimum of four Level II or Level III EV chargers. The program offers grants up to $600 per kW of PV installed, with a maximum cap of $300,000 per project and a total budget, as of Fiscal Year 2021, of $1.6 million.

Community solar

In 2021, regulators in Maryland unanimously voted to expand the capacity of the state’s community solar program as well as improve access for low- and moderate-income (LMI) customer participation in the state’s Community Solar Pilot Program.

According to the Coalition for Community Solar Access, the expansion of the program will allow community solar to power the equivalent of an additional 6,840 Maryland homes annually. The expansion also changed development regulations, allowing community solar projects to be built on clean-fill construction sites, transforming previously unusable industrial locations into clean solar energy generation sites.

Building on that commitment to community solar, in 2022, the Maryland legislature passed a pair of bills targeted at increasing the amount of eligible projects, and increasing the incentive for such projects to be developed.

The first of the two is HB 1039, which exempts community solar projects from both county and municipal corporate property taxes, so long as the 50% of the electricity generated by the projects go to serve low- to moderate-income individuals and families at a rate which is at least 20% lower than the base electricity rate that these customers would be paying otherwise.

As it stands, 30% of the pilot program capacity is still set aside for low-to-moderate income customers wishing to participate and another 30% is set aside for project development on brownfield sites.

The bill also establishes additional tax incentives for the development of agrivoltaic community solar projects on rooftops, brownfields, landfills, and clean fills.

The other bill, HB 440, will expand the maximum capacity of a permitted community solar project from 2 MW to 5 MW, while also reducing the land requirements for siting projects. This provision pertains to projects developed on multiple, contiguous lots, rather than opening up new types of land zones for development.

Last time, the pv magazine tour of the 50 states of solar took us to neighboring Delaware, and next we will continue to travel through the DMV, stopping off in Virginia.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved final amendments to the state’s net metering policy, first outlined in Jan. 2022, which now refers to the program as the Net Renewable Generation Rules.

The program is much the same as the proposal released in the winter, focused on increasing solar adoption across the board, while also improving access to solar for low- and middle-income (LMI) residents.

The net metering rate, at its base, remains below full retail electricity rates, at 2.5 cents/kWh over the deemed ‘avoided cost’ of solar. In this sense, avoided cost refers to the difference between the cost of solar generated by a rooftop and the cost of the utility procuring that energy from a different generation facility.

The PSC also confirmed the 2 cents/kWh adder for customers who are at or below 250% of the federal poverty line for any solar they choose to export, and this adder comes with no customer nor capacity limit. Both the avoided cost adder and the low-income adder will be legacy programs, available to any customer who signs up for 25-years from their sign up date.

Depending on a customer’s rate structure and the adders they qualify for, their exported electricity rate could end up higher than the retail electricity rate, and specific customer rates will vary.

The new net metering rules also include a requirement that each of the state’s investor-owned utilities offer a one-time $3,500 upfront cash rebate to any retail residential customer purchasing a renewable distributed energy project with a minimum size of between 3 kW and a maximum of 110% of the customer’s expected annual usage, that is used, at least in part, for self-supply.

Both of the adders, as well as the rebate, were created to “meaningfully enhance both access to and the adoption of distributed generation by the currently underrepresented low-income segment of customers.”

Low- and middle-income customers are typically dissuaded from installing solar due to the high upfront costs, rather than by low export rates that increase payback times, hence the inclusion of the upfront rebate.

The PSC also added to the program meter aggregation provisions, meaning that customers with multiple meters can use energy generated by one solar or other form of distributed generation (DG) system on any eligible meter of theirs. Eligible meters must be located on the same premises or within the service area of the customers’ current electric provider.

The number of customers that may participate in net generation has also been raised, with the previous hard 3% participation cap moving up to a 4% non-hard cap. Non-hard, in this context, requires utilities to seek regulatory approval to refuse additional DG customers if and when participation reaches 4% of the utility’s total system peak demand, which the commission may deny.

The new rules will be in place for at least five years from the start date of the order, unless total net distributed generation capacity reaches 4% of the utilities’ system peak demand, at which point regulators may choose to reopen the rulemaking for new changes.

Edit 7/19/2022: This article was amended to update the upfront rebate amount and to clarify rebate rate structures and maximum eligible project size. We apologize for the error.

A joint recall with Health Canada, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (US CPSC) and SunVilla Corporation has been issued for all 10-foot solar LED Market Umbrellas. The umbrellas have LED lights on the arms of the umbrella that are powered by a lithium-ion battery charged with a small solar panel.

The recall was issued after reports of batteries overheating and causing fires in the United States and Canada. In three reported incidents, the solar panels caught fire while charging via the AC adapter indoors.

Consumers are advised to immediately stop using the umbrellas, remove the solar panel puck containing a lithium-ion battery from the top of the umbrella, store the puck out of the sun and away from combustible material, and not charge the puck with the AC adapter.

Lithium-ion batteries have been known to cause fires in the past. Last year LG Energy Solution Michigan issued a recall for its RESU 10H batteries in the US market that affected about 10,000 storage systems. “The home batteries can overheat, posing a risk of fire and emission of harmful smoke,” the manufacturer said at the time.

Battery manufacturers are increasingly turning to less hazardous solutions. After its recall, LG transitioned from nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery chemistry to lithium iron phosphate in its future products. Briggs & Stratton’s SimpliPHI Energy Storage System uses lithium-ferro-phosphate chemistry, which does not use cobalt, a metal associated with health hazards, and a key culprit in battery fires. And the new Canadian company, Salient Energy, developed a zinc-ion battery, which is a water-based chemistry that the company says eliminates the risk of fire, making the batteries more applicable for residential energy storage.

The umbrellas affected by the recall are made in China by SunVilla and sold at Costco in the United States and Canada. Consumers can return them to any Costco Warehouse for a full refund. SunVilla and Costco are also attempting to contact known purchasers.

Renewable Energy Test Center (RETC), a leading independent lab for testing photovoltaic (PV) and battery products has released its 2022 PV Module Index (PVMI) report, highlighting module performance across a variety of lab tests, as well as providing industry-cited clarifications into the real-world significance of the results.

The 2022 PVMI marks the first edition released since VDE acquired a 70% stake in RECT. President and CEO Cherif Kedir said the move will allow RETC to expand its testing services to a broader network of manufacturers, investors, insurers and developers, all in pursuit of minimizing risk and uncertainty in favor of long-term reliability, sustainability and profitability by designing better data-driven risk mitigation programs and service products.

Eyes on 2023 and beyond

RETC Vice President of Business Development Daniel Chang told pv magazine the 2022 PVMI takes a more forward-looking approach than previous editions, supplementing testing results and hardware performance with emerging industry trends that are going to guide the use of this hardware and investments in projects that utilize it into 2023 and beyond.

“We focus on what we think are going to be topics that are going to be relevant for the upcoming year, like the onset of N-Type modules, and field services,” explained Chang. “There are a lot of installations out there degrading at a faster pace than expected. These installations are investments in assets made by banks to yield some sort of financial benefit to them, right? If they have some sort of degradation, then that’s not performing the way that was expected and planned for.”

Specifically, RETC is interested in forensic analysis for PV systems; a detailed investigation that seeks to establish the root cause of PV system underperformance. This investigation is the culmination of different analyses to be done over the life of a project, starting with a baseline third-party module health assessment during project commissioning.

In instances of underperformance, RETC recommends Electroluminescence (EL) testing. EL testing uses a special camera system to document the light emissions that occur when an electrical current passes through PV cells. The technology has long been used in labs to detect a wide range of hidden module defects.

Another aspect of forensic analysis is predictive maintenance, wherein a third party inspects plants from periodically to detect issues that may not be visible at a base overview, but could develop into much larger issues if allowed to linger.

While Chang brought to light the ongoing issue of degradation and the developing need for advanced field services, Kedir focused more on the technology side, researching where the next wave of module innovation will come in a post-large-format world.

That innovation, he thinks, will come from heterojunction n-type modules (HJT).

“I think leading manufacturers are kind of a crossroad point right now, in terms of how to get more power out of modules without making the modules just unreasonably large, because they’re already pretty damn big,” Kedir said. “The other reason I think manufacturers may be hesitant to make their modules larger is that everybody is testing the waters with heterojunction cells, so that they can eke out more more watts per module, without having to increase the size. With the module technologies they currently have, I don’t think they’re able to get a lot more efficiency out of the cell, so they’re trying to figure out how to get more power without increasing the module size, and the next, the next logical thing is to go to different technologies, Topcon and heterojunction.”

In an op-ed for pv magazine in Nov. 2021, Nadeem Haque, chief technology officer at Heliene outlined some of the distinct technology advantages that HJT presents.

HJT cell manufacturing involves the deposition of an amorphous layer of silicon on both the top and bottom of the wafer followed by a transparent conducting oxide deposition and making of metal contacts.

HJT cell production lines are currently expensive, almost prohibitively so, and new lines need to be built. The cells require a more expensive metallization paste to manufacture. HJT cells are by nature bifacial, with bifaciality rates above 90%, the highest of any cell technology. The temperature coefficient of HJT cells is in the range of 0.25%/oC to 0.30%/oC.

Higher bifaciality and lower temperature coefficients result in higher energy output, and HJT cells in mass production are expected to reach about 27% efficiency.

“You can gauge where the industry is going based on where investment money is going, and we hear a lot about companies investing money in heterojunction cell lines in Asia, so I think that’s probably going to be a trend,” said Kedir.

The last industry trend examined by RETC is mitigating the effects of extreme weather on PV systems, a topic which pv magazine has reported on extensively with RETC and other partners, like VDE Americas.

Module index

The core of the report is a review of modules’ performance across a range of tests that are designed to go beyond the parameters of tests for certification and accurately project what each module’s strengths are, rather than compare and rank them against one another.

The tests are split up into three categories, each of which analyzes a different aspect of module excellence: quality indicators, performance indicators, and reliability indicators. In testing, the researchers at RETC noticed a new trend that some of the performance and reliability gaps from manufacturer to manufacturer have widened, as opposed to the narrowing they observed in recent years.

“Some of the issues that we saw over the last year have been related to manufacturers faced with their own supply chain issues and inability to get their raw materials,” explained Kedir. “They’ve had to go to other sources, secondary and tertiary sources of cells and backsheets, and then that triggered a few failures, we saw more of them last year. What’s been lingering is potential-induced degradation (PID) and some related performance stuff. On cells, PID, for all intents and purposes, had been completely solved a few years ago, but then it reappeared throughout the pandemic, with the supply chain issues, we see some of that leftover.”

This is a phenomenon that Kedir expects to see continue, at least in the short term. The issue may linger as a result of the recently-announced two year moratorium on the DOC’s anticircumvention case, he said.

“Demand is going to is going to pick up in the US,” he began. “The upcoming traceability requirements are going to put a constraint on the cell supply from forced labor regions, which means you’re not going to have enough cell supply for them for the market demands. This causes supply separation between manufacturers. Some larger manufacturers have already completely mitigated that issue, developed a new supply chain for polycrystal, and have new cell lines in Southeast Asia. Those guys are going to fare out much better than a manufacturer who hasn’t put in that infrastructure already. They’re going to have to try to source cells from other places or other manufacturers that may or may not be as good as their initial supply.”

While the gap between top-tier, established module manufacturers and some newer market entrants is widening, RETC still had a number of manufacturers perform well across their litany of tests.

Based on available testing data, RETC highlighted Hanwha Q CELLS, JA Solar, Jinko Solar, LONGi Solar, Trina Solar, and Yingli Solar as the overall top performers of the year. The recognition does not stop with the top performers, however, and RETC listed some of the manufacturers who scored the highest marks in individual tests, listed below.

Hail durability:

• LONGi Solar
• Jinko Solar

Thresher test:

• Hanwha Q CELLS
• JA Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Tesla
• Trina Solar
• Yingli Solar

LID resistance:

• Hanwha Q CELLS
• Jinko Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Trina Solar

LeTID resistance:

• Hanwha Q CELLS
• JA Solar
• Jinko Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Trina Solar
• Yingli Solar

Module efficiency:

• JA Solar
• LONGi Solar
• REC Solar
• Silfab Solar
• Tesla
• Yingli Solar

Pan file performance:

• JA Solar
• Jinko Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Trina Solar

PTC-to-STC ratio

• Hanwha Q CELLS
• JA Solar
• REC Solar
• Silfab Solar
• Tesla
• Yingli Solar

Damp heat test

• JA Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Hanwha Q CELLS
• Tesla
• Trina Solar
• Yingli Solar

Dynamic mechanical load test:

• JA Solar
• Jinko Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Trina Solar
• Yingli Solar

PID resistance:

• JA Solar
• Jinko Solar
• LONGi Solar

Thermal cycle test:

• Hanwha Q CELLS
• JA Solar
• Jinko Solar
• LONGi Solar
• Tesla
• Trina Solar
• Yingli Solar

RETC said the rankings are comprehensive only to data that the company has collected, so modules from other manufacturers could perform similarly to the ones listed above, but the organization cannot make an overall determination regarding high achievement in manufacturing without module tests data across the three categories.

The report concludes with a look at a number of notable changes and revisions anticipated in the upcoming edition of IEC 61730, a two-part standard pertaining to PV module safety qualification, as well as upcoming updates to IEC TS 62915, a technical specification pertaining to PV module approval, design and safety qualification.

The standards analysis is expansive, and pv magazine will cover these pending changes in a follow-up to this article.

Edit 6/24/22: This article was edited and re-published to recognize additional companies who earned recognition in individual tests, as well as top performers. We apologize for the oversight. 

The Supreme Court of North Carolina has issued an order affirming homeowners’ right to install rooftop solar, even if previously prohibited by a Homeowners association (HOA).

The decision was reached in Belmont Association v. Thomas Farwig. Farwig argued that his HOA had no grounds to block his rooftop solar plans, as the community rules don’t expressly prohibit it. Conversely, Belmont Community Association, argues that Mr. Farwig’s solar array can be considered an “improvement,” which is something that the group has the authority to reject, regardless of whether it is an improvement explicitly listed by HOA rules. Belmont also found that the array would “be aesthetically unpleasing as viewed from the public street.”

Belmont began charging Farwig $50 a day to keep his property out of foreclosure, which he paid. The HOA then placed a lien on his home. This is when Mr. Farwig decided to countersue, alleging that solar access laws had been violated.

After an appeals court ruled in favor of Belmont, the issue was brought to the North Carolina Supreme Court. The court ruled that HOA provisions granting broad discretionary authority to architectural review committees cannot be used to prohibit the installation of solar panels. The court also affirmed that the HOA’s architectural review committee could not limit the location of solar panels to the back of the home, in situations where installing panels in the back would prevent the reasonable use of the solar panels due to roof orientation.

During the case, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA), represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Farwig, as did the North Carolina Attorney General.

“The ruling issued by the North Carolina Supreme Court is a significant achievement for homeowner property rights in North Carolina, affirming access to clean, renewable power for those previously denied by their HOAs,” according to Peter Ledford, NCSEA’s General Counsel and Director of Policy. “This decision will reduce a significant barrier to the residential solar market in North Carolina, supporting jobs in the rooftop solar industry, and helping homeowners lower their utility bills and clean up the grid.” 

The decision was based on North Carolina’s 2007 solar access law, which states that HOA’s cannot ban solar explicitly or effectively, and that it can only bar front-facing solar arrays if it explicitly lists them in its community rules.

In 2021, the state’s House of Representatives passed legislation that removed the front-facing exception, and instead gave control to HOAs to dictate panel placement, as long as there isn’t more than a 10% impact on generation.

A rising issue

North Carolina is not the first state where disputes between homeowners and HOAs regarding solar installations have been taken to the state level, though the issue has typically been resolved through legislation.

In March, Indiana passed legislation, House Bill 1196, which makes it considerably more difficult for Homeowners Associations (HOA) to prohibit residents from adding solar installations to their homes.

The law states that any homeowner who is a member of a HOA that has codified rules (adopted or amended after 2019) or previously ruled that solar installations may not be installed within the community, can petition other homeowners association members for approval to install a solar energy system on the homeowner’s dwelling unit or property. Once homeowners have collected signatures from 65% of HOA residents, the HOA board of directors, an architectural review committee, or an architectural control committee of the HOA may not deny the homeowner’s request to install the solar energy system.

In August 2021, Illinois passed similar legislation to House Bill 1196. That legislation rescinded the ability of community associations to ban members from installing solar on certain areas of their homes. The associations can still determine the specific configuration of said installation, so long as that decision does not lower the system’s annual estimated generation output by more than 10%. The law also significantly cut down the amount of time that association members have to wait for a response once filing their application for approval of a system with their association.

One of the country’s most historically healthy and active solar markets, New Jersey has perennially been a top-10 state in terms of installed capacity and projects in construction. The state’s new incentive program, passed in July 2021, is set to bring nearly 3.8 GW of new solar capacity to the state by 2026, but concerns over interconnection delays have some advocates questioning how much of that solar will actually get built.

Solar in New Jersey

New Jersey currently ranks 8^th in the country in total installed solar capacity with just under 4 GW of installed capacity, and solar accounts for 6.66% of the state’s electrical generation.

Unlike other states, where capacity figures can be driven by one specific type of solar installation, New Jersey has a healthy mix of residential, commercial and industrial (C&I), utility-scale. The state also has an emerging community solar market, which will be explored in more detail below.

Over the next five years, the state is expected to bring online an additional 2 GW, good for 15^th in the country over that period.

Incentives and programs

In July 2021, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) voted unanimously to implement a new solar incentive program that it said will enable up to 3.75 GW of new solar generation by 2026.

The Successor Solar Incentive Program (SuSI) was part of a nearly three-year process mandated by the Clean Energy Act of 2018 to replace the state’s Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) program with new incentives that encourage solar development while minimizing ratepayer cost.

The SuSI Program contains two sub-programs:

The Administratively Determined Incentive: A fixed incentive payment for net metered solar projects of 5 MW or less, including all residential customers and most commercial and industrial buildings, and all community solar installations. The incentive value will vary based on project type and size, and will be guaranteed for 15 years.

The Competitive Solar Incentive: A competitive solicitation designed to incentivize the lowest financial contribution from ratepayers for grid supply projects and net metered commercial and industrial projects larger than 5 MW.

SuSI will provide one New Jersey Solar Renewable Energy Certificate-II (NJ SREC–II) for every megawatt-hour of solar electricity produced by a qualifying facility, with an additional $20/MWh for public entities such as school districts, municipalities, and public colleges and universities, as well as a temporary incentive for projects built on contaminated lands.

Incentive levels for the ADI Program range from $70 to $120/SREC-II. Regulators said this would provide ongoing support for solar development while also offering “significant savings” over the prior SREC value of roughly $220.

In addition to the state’s net metering program, there are additional incentives and tax exemptions in place to spur solar adoption.

The state offers a full exemption from the state’s sales tax for all solar energy equipment, as long as said equipment has previously been approved by BPU and serves one of the following functions: providing heating, cooling, electrical, or mechanical power by converting solar energy to some other usable energy source. This definition also includes energy storage devices.

In addition to the sales tax exemption, in 2008, the state passed legislation exempting renewable energy systems used to meet on-site electricity, heating, cooling, or general energy needs from local property taxes. This exemption extends to solar, wind, fuel cell, and sustainable biomass, systems, as well as other, more niche generation systems.

Community solar

In Oct. 2021, state regulators announced that New Jersey would transition its the two-year-old pilot community solar program to permanent status. The decision to move to a permanent program now rather than wait for a third year of the pilot to commence was driven by the pilot’s success so far.

In two years of the pilot program, a total of 242 MW were awarded to developers by BPU. The pilot required that at least 40% of all approved projects reserve at least 51% of their capacity for low- and middle-income households, and all of the approved projects met that goal.

Scott Elias, senior manager of state affairs, mid-Atlantic for SEIA, said that the trade group is working with the state to develop a program that adds at least 150 MW of solar energy capacity each year.

“We are pleased that every one of the 105 approved community solar projects in New Jersey will provide low-to-moderate-income communities with clean, affordable energy,” Elias said in a statement. He said that regulatory changes to the community solar program, including improvements to the low and moderate-income subscriber verification rules, “are another positive step in improving access to the benefits of clean electricity for lower income communities and communities of color.”

EV and fleet electrification incentives

New Jersey has also taken a leadership role in developing incentives aimed at increasing the adoption of electric vehicles (EV) among both general consumers and fleet operators.

Chief among the consumer incentives, individuals who sell, rent, or lease a new or used zero-emission vehicle are exempt from sales and use taxes on that vehicle. The state is also home to the Charge Up New Jersey Program, which provides incentives to residents who purchase or lease new battery electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles that have an MSRP of less than $55,000.

New Jersey residents are also eligible for the federal Plug-In Electric Drive Vehicle Tax Credit, which provides a base credit of $2,500, for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and an additional $417 for each kWh of EV battery capacity in excess of 4 kWh.

On the fleet side, New Jersey has its It Pay$ to Plug In program, which provides grants to offset the costs of purchasing and installing electric vehicle charging stations for businesses, governments, educational institutions, multi-unit housing properties, and non-profit organizations. The program covers up to 100% of costs for government public charging stations, 80% of costs for privately-owned public charging stations, and up to 60% of costs for workplace charging stations and multi-unit dwelling charging stations.

The maximum incentive for a level-1 EV charging station is up to $750, with the incentive rising to up to $4,000 for level-2 charging, and up to $200,000 per location for installation of at least two Direct Current Fast Charging ports.

In addition to the incentives for charging infrastructure, the New Jersey Zero Emission Incentive Program is a $15 million pilot voucher program that provides incentives for businesses and other similar entities purchasing new, medium-duty zero-emission vehicles that will operate in greater Camden Newark areas.

For vehicles from 8,501 to 10,000 lbs, the voucher is $25,000, which raises to $55,000 for vehicles 10,001 to 14,000 lbs; $75,000 for vehicles 14,001 to 16,000 lbs; $85,000 for vehicles 16,001 to 19,500 lbs; and $100,000 for vehicles 19,501 to 26,000 lbs. Woman, minority, and veteran owned business are eligible for $4,000 bonus per vehicle, while small businesses are eligible for a 25% increase in base voucher amount per vehicle and $2,000 per vehicle scrapped and replaced.

In addition to these existing incentives, in February 2021, Gov. Phil Murphy announced $100 million for the following clean transportation projects:

• $9 million in grants for local government electrification projects that will help improve air quality in environmental justice communities through the deployment of electric garbage and delivery trucks;
• $13 million in grants for low- and moderate-income communities to reduce emissions that affect children’s air quality through the deployment of electric school buses and shuttle buses;
• $5 million in grants for equitable mobility projects that will bring EV ride hailing and charging stations to four New Jersey towns and cities;
• $5 million in grants for deployment of fast charging infrastructure at 27 locations statewide;
• $36 million to reduce diesel and black carbon emissions in environmental justice communities by electrifying port, cargo handling, and other medium- and heavy-duty equipment in port and industrial areas;
• $15 million toward NJ TRANSIT bus electrification; and
• $15 million toward flex funding to further support the aforementioned initiatives.

Community Solar developer Solar Landscape announced that it has completed and energized a 3,300-module series of solar installations located on the rooftops of four schools across the Asbury Park School District in New Jersey.

In total, the project has a capacity of  1.3 MW, and all of the electricity generated will be used by the school under a 15-year, no-cost power purchase agreement. The generation is expected to meet 52% of the electricity need for Asbury Park High School, Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Upper Elementary School, and Bradley Elementary School.

Solar Landscape is also in the process of collaborating with the Board of Education to provide renewable energy instruction to Asbury Park students, including student education on the benefits of green energy and green energy career opportunities that are available to them. All of this is being done as a part of Solar Landscape’s Green Ambassador Program, which also issues scholarships to students, and works with New Jersey community colleges, technical schools and nonprofits to introduce students to careers in the solar energy industry.

“As an Asbury Park-based company, being a good partner to our local community – especially students and educators – is a driving force behind our mission and is a core reason that our 100-plus employees come to work every day,” said Solar Landscape CEO Shaun Keegan. “Together with Asbury Park School District, we are lowering emissions and doing our part to combat climate change by accelerating the transition to renewable energy. So when we can do it in a way that directly benefits our neighbors by saving them money and creating jobs and educational opportunities, it is even more rewarding.”

The addition of the installations across the Asbury Park School District further establish Solar Landscape as one of the leading solar developers in New Jersey. In March, the company energized the final project of the 20 total MW it was awarded under New Jersey’s Community Solar Pilot Program Year One. Solar Landscape’s 46 projects for year two of the program are now under construction and are expected to generate more than 50MW of power once operational.

Solar Landscape’s 50 MW portfolio represents roughly one-third of all capacity awarded under year two of the community solar program. In October 2021, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced that it would be making the program permanent, driven by the pilot’s success so far.

The Maryland legislature has taken steps towards strengthening its ongoing community solar pilot program, passing a pair of bills targeted at increasing the amount of eligible projects, and increasing the incentive for such projects to be developed.

The first of the two is HB 1039, which exempts community solar projects from both county and municipal corporate property taxes, so long as the 50% of the electricity generated by the projects go to serve low- to moderate-income individuals and families at a rate which is at least 20% lower than the base electricity rate that these customers would be paying otherwise.

As it stands, 30% of the pilot program capacity is still set aside for low-to-moderate income customers wishing to participate and another 30% is set aside for project development on brownfield sites.

The bill also establishes additional tax incentives for the development of agrivoltaic community solar projects on rooftops, brownfields, landfills, and clean fills. Agrivoltaic projects are those which dual-use a plot of land to house both a solar installation and agriculture, and have been described by Chad Higgins, an associate professor in Oregon State’s College of Agricultural Sciences as a “rare chance for true synergy: more food, more energy, lower water demand, lower carbon emissions, and more prosperous rural communities.”

The other bill, HB 440, will expand the maximum capacity of a permitted community solar project from 2 MW to 5 MW, while also reducing the land requirements for siting projects. This provision pertains to projects developed on multiple, contiguous lots, rather than opening up new types of land zones for development.

“HB 1039 and HB 440 send a signal to the community solar industry that Maryland welcomes the private sector as a way to inject capital into grid modernization and build a new energy market that can bolster the state’s economy,” said Leslie Elder, Mid-Atlantic director for the Coalition for Community Solar Access. “We thank the Maryland General Assembly for passing these bills and Governor Hogan for his support.”

The bills both build on regulatory action from 2021, which expanded the program to allow community solar to power the equivalent of an additional 6,840 Maryland homes, while also allowing community solar projects to be built on clean-fill construction sites, transforming previously unusable industrial locations into clean solar energy generation sites.

With the end of the New York State legislative session rapidly approaching, climate and renewable energy advocates are hoping to see continued action on the New York State Build Public Renewables Act (S6453C), which recently passed in the state senate.

The New York State Build Public Renewables Act would authorize the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop and implement renewable energy projects that will ensure New York State can meet the goals laid out in the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), achieving  70% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and the governor’s goal to achieve 10 GW of solar by 2030.

The Build Public Renewables Act would:

• Authorize the New York Power Authority to build, own, and operate renewable energy projects.
• Require the New York Power Authority to phase out its fossil fuel power plants by 2030 and provide and deliver only renewable energy to customers.
• Require the New York Power Authority to be the sole provider of renewable energy to all state-owned properties by 2030 and municipal-owned properties by 2035.
• Authorize the New York Power Authority to offer renewable energy to residential customers, with a requirement to offer low-to-moderate income customers an energy supply rate that is 50% lower than the rate of the customer’s local utility.
• Require New York Power Authority projects and programs to pay a prevailing wage and utilize project labor agreements.

While we don’t yet know the scope of renewables that would be installed if this bill were to pass, it would likely be significant capacity, as NYPA would be looking to replace the 461 MW of natural gas fired peaker plants that it operates across New York City and Long Island.

The bill also has a carveout for equitable access to the proposed clean generation capacity additions. It would authorize NYPA to sell renewable energy to residential end-use customers and Community Choice Aggregation communities, but any excess renewable energy not used for state or municipal buildings is to be directed to low-to-moderate (LMI) income customers first, at a rate that is fifty percent less than the energy supply rate of the local utility in the customer’s service territory. The bill also asserts that LMI customers in disadvantaged communities are to be prioritized.

“As the largest public owned utility in the country, the New York Power Authority has led the way in providing affordable energy in New York State,” said Senator Kevin Parker, bill sponsor and chair of the Committee on Energy and Telecommunications. “It is imperative that we convert our electrical grid to renewable energy to meet our climate goals in New York State, and this bill will enable NYPA to fully power State and municipal properties with renewable energy by 2030 and 2035 respectively.”

Renewable acceleration

The beginning of June has been a busy legislative and renewables period for the state of New York. On June 2, the New York Energy Research & Development Authority shared it is seeking feedback on the processes involved in auctioning projects for its soon-to-launch Build-Ready program. The purpose of the Built-Ready program is to derisk solar development at sites that the State of New York deems highly desirable for deploying solar power.

First, NYSERDA has a rolling Site Recommendation Form in place, with the team ‘prioritizing the development of existing or abandoned commercial sites, brownfields, landfills, former industrial sites, and other abandoned or underutilized sites.’ Once a site is submitted, NYSERDA will do a remote screening of the site to determine the highest layers of viability, with further assessments and designs to determine financial viability, as well as other pre-screening techniques to follow.

After those steps have been completed, the state will take on the financial and time risks of getting landowners to agree to host a solar power project, gaining zoning approval from the local jurisdictions, and working through interconnection with the local utility or the New York ISO.

Also on June 2, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced awards for 22 large-scale solar and energy storage projects to be constructed across the state, which together will add more than 2 GW of clean energy and roughly 160 MW (likely 640 MWh) of storage added to the grid. These projects are also being procured in pursuit of achieving  70% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and the governor’s goal to achieve 10 GW of solar by 2030. Once on-line, they are anticipated to raise the state’s renewable supply of its energy mix to around 66%.

In developing the 22 listed projects, developers have committed nearly $86 million in investments in disadvantaged communities throughout the state, including community-based investments such as new occupational apprenticeships, scholarship programs, and summer camps focused on supporting local disadvantaged communities. Additionally, all developers have committed to ensuring that workers associated with the construction of projects are paid a prevailing wage, a standard set by the NYS Department of Labor.

The average statewide bill impact for the typical residential customer will be approximately $0.13 per month once the projects are in operation, with all 22 projects having a weighted-average all-in development cost of $63.08 per MWh.

Nautilus Solar Energy said that it has acquired two community solar portfolios of projects under development in Maine from BNRG Maine LLC, a joint community solar development venture led by BNRG Renewables Dirigo Solar.

According to Nautilus, two portfolios are comprised of five projects in Cumberland, Kennebec and Penobscot counties, totaling 26.2 MW in total capacity. All five projects are in various stages of development, with the first projects expected to reach operation by the third quarter of 2022. Nautilus will act as the long-term owner of the projects and will be responsible for overseeing construction, maintaining its long-term performance, and acquiring and managing customer subscriptions. Any residential Central Maine Power utility customer is eligible to subscribe to the projects through Nautilus with no upfront cost, no long-term commitment, and no cancellation fees, Nautilus reports.

The projects will all operate under Maine’s NEB program, which allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects, like community solar, which, in turn, spurs further development of these assets within the state. The NEB program has become critical in establishing a healthy and growing community solar market in Maine.

Nautilus Solar acquired these portfolios in two separate transactions with BNRG Maine, bringing Nautilus’ capacity of acquired and developed community solar projects within the state to more than 92 MW, of which 52 MW will be operational end of Q3 2022 and 88 MW by the end of 2022. Nautilus has made a big push into community solar since being acquired in 2019 by Power Sustainable, a subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada.

In April, Nautilus announced the completion of a 24.9 MW community solar portfolio in New York. Comprised of four projects located in Allegany, Cattaraugus, Genesee, and Steuben counties, the combined portfolio provides enough power for an estimated 1,950 households and multiple commercial subscribers, including the Target, Lowe’s, and Hannaford Brothers. Two months before that, the company announced the completion of a pair of community solar portfolios in Colorado and Minnesota.

In Colorado, Denver-based Pivot Energy and Nautilus completed a 13 MW community solar portfolio, which is made up of seven projects located in Crowley, Weld, and Logan counties. The installations provide energy to an estimated 1,700 households and 12 commercial subscribers, including the Town of Breckenridge. The projects are in the Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy utility territories.

In Minnesota, Nautilus acquired twelve community solar projects in Minnesota totaling 16.8 MW of solar capacity, located in Blue Earth, Sherburne, Wabasha, Winona, Sibley, Wright, Pope, and Meeker counties. The projects are all in various stages of development, with the first several projects expected to be operational by the end of 2022. Once completed, the projects will provide a clean energy option to 4,200 households in Minnesota within the Xcel Energy electric utility territory. Any residential Xcel Energy utility customer in Minnesota located in the same or adjacent county to a project may subscribe through Nautilus with no upfront cost, no long-term commitment and no cancellation fees, Nautilus reports.

US Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bob Casey (D-PA), along with US Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-9), sent a letter to President Biden expressing their support for continued Department of Commerce (DOC) investigation into the alleged anti-circumvention violations of Chinese solar panel exporters and module manufacturers operating in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and urging the president to “Shield [the] American solar manufacturing industry from unfair foreign competition.”

The letter takes direct issue with previous instances of political and industry leaders calling for the Department of Commerce to swiftly end its investigation, referring to these petitions as “well-funded, overwhelming special interest political pressure seeking to undermine an independent, quasi-judicial investigation.” The letter also alleges that such petitions are being pursued to undermine the integrity of trade enforcement laws and the independence of the federal workforce.

The letter also suggests foul play, with regard to influencing public opinion, within the solar industry, saying that it is “troubling that corporate lobbying against a simple investigation would reach this level of mass hysteria if there was not some concern over what career civil servants at DOC may uncover.” The letter calls out the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) by name as the party spearheading a campaign “advertising and lobbying to urge political interference in the trade enforcement process.”

A matter of security

Outside of a baseline support for the health of the US solar manufacturing industry, the letter also raises concerns around national cybersecurity in an environment where China dominates module supply.

Solar energy is vulnerable to cyberattack through solar photovoltaic inverters and microchips or microcontrollers embedded into a module’s junction box, which can be programmed. These smart modules look virtually identical to a traditional photovoltaic module. By relying on Chinese-made solar panels, we jeopardize America’s energy security well beyond this administration.

The issue of Chinese cyber attacks via solar inverters is one that comes up frequently in conversations of national security, and one where money is already being directed to mitigate the threat. Alan Mantooth and his team at the University of Arkansas’ National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission have been given $3.6 million in grant money from the US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office to develop sophisticated yet low-cost tools to protect the power electronics housed within inverters.

“Inverters represent a vulnerability in the sense that we have to communicate with them,” Mantooth told pv magazine in a 2021 interview. The point of contact that enables that two-way communications to occur also means “the grid is vulnerable” to a potential attack.

Inverters are essentially Internet of Things devices that share their electronics DNA with devices like smart thermostats, TVs, and refrigerators. Mantooth looks at the problem of hardening a solar inverter against a cyber intruder as involving both hardware and software. If no one inserts a hardware trojan horse, then the device can be considered protected, he said.

Software presents a different case. Here, he and his research team assume that a bad actor can access the software that operates an inverter’s power electronics and can manipulate the software to cause harm.

Inverter functionality is addressed under the IEEE 1547 standard, which was revised in 2018 and is currently being rolled out in a range of regulatory rules that cover grid interconnection. Underwriters Laboratories also modified its inverter certification and standard to require voltage ride-through, frequency ride-through, anti-islanding, volt-var, and frequency-watt functionalities, all aimed at improving grid resiliency.

Import freeze fakeout 

The letter also alleges that the freeze on solar module imports that the US has experienced since the beginning of the investigation is “a conscious choice by Chinese manufacturers to temporarily constrain supply on the American market to exert more political pressure on this administration.”

If anything, there seems to be a deliberate exploitative use of this investigation as an excuse to break American contracts and divert product to the European Union, where prices for solar products have skyrocketed in recent months due to the war in Ukraine.

Due to the investigation and freeze on solar module imports, SEIA has lowered its solar installation forecasts for 2022 and 2023 by 46%. SEIA has predicted that the case will result in a drop of 24 GW of planned solar capacity over the next two years, which is more solar than the industry installed in all of 2021.

SEIA’s survey, with over 700 responses current to April 26, 83% of respondents that purchase or use modules reported cancellations or delays in their module supply agreements. 13 states had 100% of respondents share that they were experiencing delayed or canceled module supply. Responses have outlined to SEIA that a total of 318 utility scale projects accounting for 51 GW of solar capacity and 6 GWh of attached battery storage are being cancelled or delayed. What’s more is that a large percentage of delayed projects could move into the realm of cancelation, as developers don’t know when they might be able to get modules and som delays may drag on to the point of project failure.

Vocal minority

Today’s letter stands alone as the most visible and vocal support for a continued investigation. On May 3, 22 US Senators composed a letter, sent to President Biden, urging the president to review the investigation “swiftly” and make an expedited preliminary decision, one that they hope will consider “the significant policy ramifications on American businesses, workers, and ratepayers.” Signers of the letter include Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Tim Kaine (D-VA).

Just over two weeks later, on May 19, 85 members of the House of Representatives signed a petition to President Biden expressing “grave concern for the economic and environmental impacts” of the inquiry.

The petition reads: 

A recently released survey of over 700 solar companies found that 83% of respondents were experiencing delays or cancelations from their CSPV suppliers. A project-level survey found that more than 50 gigawatts of new solar projects are currently canceled or delayed because of the Commerce inquiry. Modeling suggests that these cancellations and delays could cost the industry more than 100,000 jobs and increase CO2 emissions by an additional 364 million metric tons of CO2 between now and 2035, which is the equivalent emissions of 97 coal-fired power plants.

The petition continued that the signees are strong supporters of the domestic solar manufacturing sector, but that this inquiry would not benefit the industry, outside a few select firms. It noted that the majority of US solar manufacturing jobs are involved not in creating modules, but in producing mounting, racking, trackers, and other balance of system components, so the probe does little help to boost existing US companies.

The petitioners suggested that instead conducting of this investigation, which likely won’t meaningfully benefit domestic manufacturing, enacting legislation like the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act and a long-term extension of the solar investment tax credit would pave the way for a US supply chain.

Duke Energy and a collective of some of the largest rooftop solar installers in North Carolina have officially come to terms on a modified version of Duke Energy’s Solar Choice Net Metering proposal, one which pushes the utility’s proposed time-of-use rates for net metering customers down the road until at least 2026.

The settlement agreement now means that this finalized version of Duke Energy’s Solar Choice Net Metering proposal, which was originally filed on November 29, 2021, will now go before the North Carolina Utilities Commission for final approval. Once approved, the new net metering tariffs, known as the ‘Proposed Bridge Rate’ will go into effect for customers submitting applications through December 31, 2026, subject to annual capacity caps. Customers who choose to enter a residential solar installation into the Proposed Bridge Rate may do so for up to 15 years, subject to certain limitations.

The settlement also includes a provision under which it can be discontinued if state regulators approve a package of incentives equivalent to at least 60 cents per watt. According to Duke, the Proposed Bridge Rate will allow the company more time to develop said incentive package.

“Duke Energy knows that customer-sited solar is an important part of the future growth of solar in North Carolina,” said Lon Huber, Duke Energy’s senior vice president of pricing and customer solutions. “We believe this phased-in compromise will help the installer industry navigate market changes and adapt to the long-term rate design of Solar Choice.”

The delaying of time-of-use rates for net metering customers, with different net metering rates for peak periods (times when projected electricity demand, and, as a result, costs, are high) and discount periods (times when projected electricity demand, and, as a result, costs, are lower), has been promoted as the big win of the compromise. In practice, the initial proposal would lower net metering rates from between $0.05 and $0.20 per kWh, as it stands today, to around $0.03/kWh. The reason for such a large variance in current rates is that the full retail rate is based on time of use and critical-peak pricing, which fluctuates, depending on the time of day and time of year.

The compromise is a timely one, as the state’s current rebate program is set to expire at the end of the year, even though North Carolina is only required to revisit the current net metering structure some time before 2027. The potential of a five-year gap in net metering policy served to create an environment of urgency for clean-energy focused groups hoping to avoid the industry-harming effects that even a couple of weeks of incentive uncertainty can have on the residential solar market.

The compromise was initially triggered by the intervention of Sundance Power Systems and other North Carolina residential solar installers, all of whom objected to the proposed time-of-use rates. These same groups have said that they will support the incentives being developed by Duke, so long as the incentive package includes the consideration of customer-generated renewable energy that is consumed on site as a demand-side energy resource.

While the compromised proposal has brought on board three of the state’s largest solar installers and previous versions already garnered the support of a coterie of clean energy advocates, including the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Vote Solar and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, there are still voices in the state’s energy landscape that see the compromise as too favorable to Duke.

Among these voices is NC WARN, a group that represents the interests of and public opposition to Duke by more than 70 solar companies and pro-solar nonprofits, says that, because the compromise came without a cost-benefit analysis regarding the net benefit that higher penetration of residential solar systems brings to non-solar customers (the inverse of the infamous utility cost-shift argument), the proposal is incomplete and still harmful to solar customers.

“After months of public and legal pressure, Duke Energy was forced to seek a compromise,” said NC WARN Executive Director, Jim Warren. “If approved, however, the new proposal would still be a step backward for the solar industry and leave Duke executives trying to lock in a high-carbon, climate-wrecking future, even as the North Carolina Utilities Commission faces a year-end deadline to plan for drastic cuts in emissions. Only in the alternate universe inhabited by utility executives can carbon reduction efforts be achieved while limiting solar power and massively expanding the use of methane gas. We understand that our solar company allies felt the need to compromise with Duke Energy in order to protect their businesses in the near term. Duke has long threatened that if its original settlement with other parties was not adopted, it would force through even worse changes to net metering.”

Utility Xcel Energy has selected Pivot energy to to develop a 41 MW community solar portfolio in Colorado, with every MW in the portfolio exclusively serving income-qualified households beneath an established income threshold.

The deal represents one of the largest income-qualified portfolios in the United States, and will provide access to affordable, clean energy to thousands of households throughout the state. In order to find customers to fill the portfolio’s capacity, Pivot shares that it will be partnering with local community organization, and will be using SunCentral’s software platform to manage active subscribers.

The two companies have not yet shard how many individual installations will make up the 41 MW portfolio, nor where those projects will be located.

“Pivot Energy is thrilled to deploy this portfolio, which will deliver profound benefits — both environmental and economic — to thousands of income-qualified households,” said Tom Hunt, CEO of Pivot Energy. “As the renewable energy industry strives to advance both energy equity and the clean energy transition, I hope to see other states and utilities emulate the leadership and constructive collaboration of Xcel Energy and the state of Colorado to facilitate more equitable access to clean energy.”

Community solar is recognized as an effective method for expanding access to clean energy and utility bill savings to low- and middle-income (LMI) electrical customers, helping to bridge the means gap that has plagued the solar industry, since ownership and leases are often financially out of the question for LMI individuals and families. These same households have historically been left out of the clean energy transition and that face many of the most adverse climate impacts.

According to Energy Outreach Colorado, one-in-four Colorado households struggle with a high energy burden, which leads to such households spending a disproportionate amount of their income on energy bills, when compared to higher-income households, with the average burden being three times worse. Households that meet or are below the 80% area median income threshold can see energy bills take up to 20% of their monthly income.

The income-verification aspect of the projects included in this portfolio is a bit of a tricky subject. Vote Solar’s Access & Equity Advisory Committee, which includes energy leaders from Vote Solar and a rotating list of partner organizations, including nonprofit solar installer GRID Alternatives, the NAACP, and Nexamp, has publicly shared its view that that one of the biggest barriers to implementing LMI community solar programs is a cumbersome, lengthy, and often humiliating income-verification process in which both the state and the solar vendor are involved. The committee said streamlining this process is critical to enrolling more families in community solar programs.

The group has instead proposed automatic qualification in community solar programs as a solution. Automatic qualification means that eligible LMI households would automatically be included in community solar programs through qualification for another government program, such as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Convergent Energy + Power and National Grid announced that the two companies have completed a solar-plus-storage system intended to provide a non-wires-alternative (NWA) for instances of peak demand for electric customers in Cicero, New York.

For the purposes of this project, a NWA is any sort of generation/storage system that removes or defers the need to construct or upgrade components of a distribution and/or transmission system. This 10 MW/40 MWh of energy storage paired with 15 MW of solar will be constructed nearby Cicero’s Pine Grove substation, and is intended to provide seamless reliability to customers served by the substation by charging the batteries when electricity demand is low and discharging when demand outstrips supply. During off-peak days, Convergent will participate in the market to provide clean energy for National Grid customers.

Utilities across the country are increasingly looking to storage as a way to meet afternoon demand spikes in lieu of traditional gas-fired peaker plants, which provide reliability at the cost of high emissions, dure to the fast-start/fast-stop nature of demand spikes.

“National Grid is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the amount of renewable energy on the grid while improving reliability and affordability for customers,” said Brian Gemmell, National Grid’s chief clean energy development officer. “Our recently released Clean Energy Vision plan outlines a pathway to achieve a fossil-free future to our energy systems that incorporates renewable sources of energy and storage solutions such as this NWA Pine Grove. Convergent Energy + Power’s expertise in developing and operating energy storage solutions that benefit utilities and communities made them a natural fit for this project.”

National Grid’s Clean Energy Vision plan is a comprehensive plan that the company released, outlining the pathways it will take to ensure net-zero emissions in operations. The plan also includes a goal to fully eliminate fossil fuels from both the company’s gas and electric systems by 2050.

The 10 MW/40 MWh of energy storage and 15 MW solar project is part of Convergent’s portfolio of eight solar-plus-storage systems in Central and Upstate New York. The solar-plus-storage system was constructed by CS Energy. GE provided the DC-Coupled energy storage package. $2.3 million of the project’s development and construction costs were provided by the New York State Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) through its NY-Sun Program, the state’s $1.8 billion initiative to advance the scale-up of solar while driving costs down and making solar energy more accessible to homes, businesses, and communities.

To date, NY-Sun funding has enabled:

• the installation of solar on the rooftop or property of 165,000 homes, spanning every county in New York
• over $1.3 billion in incentives, leveraging $6.1 billion in private investment
• over 2,500% solar growth in the State
• the delivery of enough clean, renewable energy to power over 627,000 New York homes
• 12,000 jobs in the solar industry
• driving down the cost of solar 70% in 10 years
• $30 million for projects benefiting environmental justice and disadvantaged communities.

The longest-tenured chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and current Chairman, Richard Glick, has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve another term as one of FERC’s five chairs. Originally appointed to the position on November 29, 2017, Glick was named chairman of FERC on January 21, 2021, and his original term was set to expire on June 30, 2022. Assuming Glick’s re-nomination is confirmed by the senate, he will serve another 5-year term until some time in 2027.

News of the nomination has been met with praise across the renewable energy landscape, due in large part to Glick’s commitment to transmission reform and FERC’s recent action to initiate a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to reform the Commission’s electric regional transmission planning and cost allocation requirements.

“At a critical moment in our nation’s clean energy transition, when emergence from a pandemic, global conflict, and extreme weather events are all dramatically impacting energy costs and resource availability, Chair Glick has provided steady leadership at FERC,” said Jeff Dennis, Advanced Energy Economy general counsel and managing director. “Chair Glick understands we need to better prepare the transmission grid to deliver the cost-effective advanced energy resources that states and customers are demanding. Glick’s continued leadership at FERC will also position the agency to improve the way distributed energy resources are utilized to power the grid of the future and meet changing customer needs.”

In July 2021, more than two dozen organizations, including the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), sent a letter to FERC Commissioners expressing their support for large-scale transmission reform, which led to an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on regional transmission planning, cost allocation and generator interconnection following later that month. Since that initial point and through FERC’s April 2021 decision, the agency has been working alongside a number of consumer advocate and policy organizations, also including ACORE to finalize some of the energy world’s longest-awaited reforms.

“Richard Glick has been exceptionally effective as Chair of FERC, and we are thrilled to see him renominated,” said Gregory Wetstone, president and CEO of the ACORE. “He has an in-depth understanding of the regulatory barriers facing the transition to a 21st century grid, and pragmatic approaches to address them. We look forward to continuing to work with him on critical reforms, like FERC’s new rulemaking on transmission, that help move the country forward on our path to a clean energy future.”

The WATT Coalition issued similar praise and reference the ongoing work that Glick is making in transmission planning, work which will be allowed to continue, assuming the senate confirms Glick’s renomination.

“The WATT Coalition congratulates Chairman Glick on his renomination to the Federal Energy Regulatory chairmanship, announced today by President Biden,” said WATT Chair Ted Bloch-Rubin. “Under Chairman Glick’s leadership, FERC has made great strides towards policy to improve the United States’ transmission system planning and operation, in service of just and reasonable rates for Americans. Chairman Glick responded to a letter from House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Chair Kathy Castor and other Members of Congress today about his progress on transmission issues, including Grid Enhancing Technologies – a long list that demonstrates his efficacy as chairman. Our coalition of technology providers, renewable energy developers and transmission providers encourages the Senate to move swiftly to reconfirm him to the position so that this important work can continue.”

Earlier this month, community solar provider Common Energy announced one of the largest investments ever made in the community solar space. It secured $16.5 million from S2G Ventures for the purpose of expanding consumer access to local, community solar projects across the country, scaling Common Energy’s energy management platform, and growing the company’s management and operating teams. 

Looking to dig more into the specifics of Common Energy’s business growth and platform enhancement goals, pv magazine sat down with company CEO and Founder, Richard Keiser, who also took some time to expand on his vision for the future of community solar’s role in the U.S. energy transition, and where Common Energy fits into that role.

Like other community solar providers, Common Energy operates as a two-sided marketplace, with a software platform that connects two different parties: energy users who want to support community solar projects, and independent power producers (IPPS), who own and operate the projects. Common Energy’s platform has two aspects to meet the needs of each of these parties: a consumer facing aspect, which enables members of the public to sign up and enroll; and a developer facing aspect, which is geared toward project management.

Common Energy said the financial and collections visibility provided by the platform results in higher project ROI for its clients. The platform can also be customized to facilitate reporting and accounting. 

“There are different aspects of the platform for each different constituent,” said Keiser. “[For energy users,] you want to make things as easy as possible to enroll, so we’re constantly looking for innovation and improvement to facilitate an easy customer journey. With respect to developer tools, you really want to have good visibility into the project performance, project collections, and into reporting, to make it easier for developers to see what the return is on the project, see how well it’s subscribed, and see how well it’s collecting. We’re constantly investing in those two areas of the platform to serve both of those constituents.”

According to Keiser, Common aims to partner with well-financed developers that have an existing track record of delivering a large number of projects or large number of installed MW, citing Standard Solar as a client who fit the bill. These and other similar companies approach Common with a portfolio that they need help executing. Usually, they partner on a collection of projects in one geography – Keiser used hypothetical examples of a 20 MW portfolio in Illinois and a 30 MW portfolio in New Jersey – and Common fills in the demand gap by securing customers to purchase the energy generated by each project within the portfolio.

As Common Energy evolves, aided especially by S2G Venture’s investment, Keiser says the name of the game is growth and platform execution in what he believes will become a rather consolidated market for community solar solutions providers.

“First priority is growth of the team,” he said. “You want to get more talented people on board, and when you do that, then they build great products. So, in terms of focus, it’s growing out our team, investing in the platform and securing more volume… Servicing these projects is complex, because instead of having one offtaker, each project might have 300 to 1000 different offtakers. That means you’re keeping track of the accounting for 300 or 1000 subscribers per project each month; collecting money for from them each month and depositing that money into developer accounts each month. This is among the most complex servicing businesses out there, so we believe that a number of players will have difficulty scaling that operation and delivering the performance that matters for developers.”

Keiser sees this potential consolidation in the community solar management realm as net positive for the entire industry, not just his firm. In his view, community solar will be insulated from the typical stagnation in market development and innovation that occurs when competition is consolidated, because the market for developers and demand for project will still be as diverse as ever.

“Without question, large scale renewables are the fastest way to decarbonize,” Keiser said. “However, community solar plays a very important role in that, the consumer needs to take the step to educate themselves just to enroll and get personally involved with the subscription. Large scale renewables can happen completely invisible to the consumer, whereas community solar involves the consumer directly in supporting the project. When they do that, they feel and experience a much deeper connection to what is actually happening, because the project is locally built, it’s near where their home is, they can drive to it, see it. That plays an important role as a catalyst for the consumers mindset.”

To date, 24 states have enacted net-zero carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) electricity production goals. Public policymakers look to carbon-neutral solar to help realize these goals, with full compliance expected between 2030 and 2050. To maintain and increase solar adoption nationwide, developers must consider how to best serve low-income communities in support of the net-zero agenda. These communities may lack the property assets and upfront resources required for self-owned residential solar and, therefore, present opportunities for solar growth as a largely untapped market.

Both housing developers and underserved communities alike can benefit greatly from increasing public funding opportunities for solar. As interest in projects that address environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects of investment continues to grow, integrating renewable energy in affordable housing projects can provide significant sustainability benefits to developers, municipalities, and end users.

But what are the most important considerations for implementing solar as part of affordable housing development projects? Let’s take a look.

Solar systems, design & permitting

Ground mount, rooftop, or carport racking systems are among the options developers can consider for incorporating solar at affordable housing developments.

Ground mount systems require available physical space and special permit considerations, particularly when located on a “green field” or previously undisturbed site. In these instances, developers can alternatively use unutilized rooftop space on larger, multifamily buildings. HVAC equipment and piping pathways should be designed with room for solar in mind. Rooftop solar can reduce facility-cooling costs when combined with reflective roof coatings or bifacial modules to boost production.

For states with established community solar offtake policies, the case for offsite ground mount systems can be made. Selecting a brownfield site minimizes environmental impact concerns and presents opportunities for additional funding, such as with New York’s NYSERDA brownfield incentive, which can be further combined with the Inclusive Community Solar Adder.

Solar carports are another option, which can protect tenants from inclement weather while redirecting precipitation to improve ground conditions, nourish landscaping, minimize winter maintenance, and reduce urban heat islanding. These features can help make the case for green building fund eligibility, like the federal Enterprise Green Communities program, a compelling advantage in the face of high structural steel costs.

Additional design considerations include integrating complementary emerging technologies to highlight a facility’s holistic commitment to net-zero. The “all-electric” building approach can leverage technical improvements in electric heat pumps while preempting pending New York legislation to ban gas hook ups in new buildings, citing climate change concerns. It’s also a safer, lower-carbon operations strategy.

What’s more, some housing developers have begun adding electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to upcoming projects, increasing equitable access to renewable transportation modes. National Grid, an electric utility in New York, manages projects and community engagement for the EV Charging Station “Make Ready” program. This incentive is available for property owners and managers of multi-unit dwellings and can cover up to 100% of EV charger infrastructure costs, like distribution transformers, conduit, and conductors.

For residents without vehicles, proximity to clean transportation must also be taken into consideration. Many states are committing to the electrification of their public bus fleets while policymakers explore new transportation strategies for reducing GHG emissions and other localized pollution.

Public funding & incentives

A review of available funding programs and their eligibility requirements should occur in conjunction with early site selection planning to give developers the best chance at project realization. After all, financial feasibility is still the greatest driver of solar investment.

The complexity of connecting resources across multiple funding sources with unique administration requirements is a significant obstacle to market development. As such, many believe the key for market expansion is a greater collaboration between local, state, and federal incentive programs and more emphasis on non-economic solar benefits that are more difficult to quantify.

Greater technical assistance for funding applicants—particularly to publicize and connect ESG-focused resources—is needed. Unifying funding applications may also help developers reach investment decisions sooner, relieving pressure on clogged electrical interconnection queues.

Thankfully, we’re beginning to see a response to these needs. For example, New York-based Homes and Community Renewal and NYSERDA recently partnered to develop the Clean Energy Initiative, which offsets the costs of adding sustainable features to affordable housing projects, especially those already in existing state bond finance and federal low-income housing tax credit programs.

Community benefits

Low-income neighborhoods have historically been subject to unsightly and harmful infrastructure and manufacturing developments. As we transition away from fossil fuels, solar advocacy organizations like Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) work diligently to engage impacted neighbors when siting projects. SEIA also works to develop educational and workforce training opportunities alongside solar installations, reframing residents as active participants in the new energy economy.

Another important benefit of increasing renewable energy generation is the offset of negative health impacts from coal-fired power. The Multi-Pollutant Power Plant Strategy – introduced this year by the EPA – sets the stage for increasing recognition of the relationship between coal-fired power production and negative health outcomes. This consideration is expected to make siting new coal-fired power plants more difficult, thereby increasing the attractiveness of solar investment.

Utility bills are often an unpredictable portion of an affordable housing community’s operating budget. By stabilizing power pricing and simplifying the owner’s financial projections, solar delivers lower and more predictable energy pricing – especially on all-electric projects. This is an important benefit for price-sensitive tenants.

A final word

Solar deployment on affordable housing projects can be used to better distribute the benefits of renewable energy to all communities, especially historically underserved populations. When coupled with ambitious carbon reduction and renewable energy mandates, the case for solar on affordable housing is a powerful one.

***

Linden Speranza, PMP, works as LaBella’s Solar Construction Program Manager and Technical Service Coordinator. She completed a Bachelor of Science in Public Policy earning magna cum laude distinction at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2010. She went on to complete a Master of Science in Science, Technology and Public Policy in 2015, specializing in sustainability topics. She has 10 years experience as a project management professional and began her career working as a GIS planning assistant before managing green and healthy home construction projects for disadvantaged communities. She began working in the solar industry in 2014 and has since led over 100 residential and commercial solar projects through design and construction phases.

Green Mountain Power (GMP), Vermont’s largest utility, covering about about 75% of the state’s landmass and most of its population, has launched a solar pilot program under which up to 500 eligible customers will be given the opportunity to sign up for a portion of an already-operating GMP solar project, with time-of-use (TOU) rates encouraging energy use when the sun is shining.

The pilot functions similar to a community solar program, with customers subscribing to a portion of a project in return for lower-cost electricity and access to renewable energy. According to GMP, the pilot is free to join, assuming customers meet the eligibility requirements, and will see the average customer saving roughly $150 annually.

According to research done by Energy Outreach Colorado, energy burden, the concept that LMI households spend a disproportionate amount of their income on energy bills, when compared to higher-income households, is significant, with such households experiencing an average financial burden brought on by their electricity bills three times worse than non-LMI customers. Households that meet or are below the 80% area median income threshold can see energy bills take up to 20% of their monthly income.

The pilot program will run using LO3 Energy’s Pando software, designed specifically for this type of program, offering compensation models to optimize renewable energy assets and ways to engage customers.  GMP customers who enroll in the program will be given access to a mobile app that will give a forecast of solar energy one to three days ahead to highlight opportunities to save more by using more energy when the sun is shining.

“Pando will help GMP’s customers subscribe to solar and optimize their savings by aligning their energy use with the sunniest periods,” said Bill Collins, CEO of LO3 Energy. “Pando’s platform means customers can easily participate in renewable energy without upfront costs or long-term commitments and can get information they need to shift their usage to solar hours and save more when it makes sense for them.”

LO3 Energy also provided the software platform for GMP’s peer to peer energy trading platform which allows businesses to purchase solar power from customers who own the rights to the renewable energy credits via a phone app.

Vermonters interested in signing up for the program or learning more can contact GMP at sunmatch@greenmountainpower.com or sign up here. Customers must meet the eligibility requirements for seasonal fuel assistance and have a gross household income at or below 185% of the federal poverty level.

Community solar developer UGE will be helping the town of Norway, Maine reach its environment and sustainability goals, announcing the development of a 1 MW community solar project, set to be built atop a capped landfill in the town.

To increase community engagement with the developers and educate on the benefits of community solar, the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy, a non-profit grassroots environmental organization in Norway, will educate the community and bring subscribers to the project.

The Norway installation is one project in a 12-project, 38 MW portfolio that UGE is developing in Maine. In total, the company has developed more than 700 projects with a combined capacity over 500 MW.

In addition to saving on energy costs, the Town of Norway will earn long-term lease revenue on the land where the project will be built.

“The new community solar farm will provide financial support for our town and for local businesses for decades to come,” said Dennis Lajoie, town manager of Norway. “We hope to serve as an example for other small towns, encouraging them to turn underutilized land into sources of clean energy and revenue that can be re-invested in their communities.”

The Norway project will all  but certainly operate under Maine’s NEB program, which allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects, like community solar, which, in turn, spurs further development of these assets within the state. The NEB program has become critical in establishing a healthy and growing community solar market in Maine.

When assessing states on the basis of their commitment to the transition to renewable energy, attention almost always goes first to how much renewable capacity each state has operating. The states typically lauded as solar leaders are typically those with the multi-GW capacity, like California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Massachusetts, among others.

Enter Vermont. With roughly 400 MW of solar installed to date, it would be easy to write the state off as another middle-of-the-pack adopter, putting some capacity on line, but not fully embracing solar. Vermont, however, is New England’s least-populous state, and those ‘meastly’ 400 MW serve just over 16% of the state’s electricity needs, more than every state listed previously, save for Massachusetts (20%) and California (25%).

On the policy side, rating Vermont’s commitment to renewables is a bit trickier. The Green Mountain State doesn’t have a 100% renewable by X date mandate; instead, in 2015, it mandated that utilities reach 75% renewable energy by 2032 – which is arguably more aggressive than the interim targets in most other states. The reason it’s arguable is that Vermont includes hydropower in its renewable mandate, a resource that allows for vast capacity additions across singular projects, but one that is also not viable in many other states, forcing them to look elsewhere for their renewable generation.

In 2019, the state’s largest utility, Green Mountain Power (GMP), announced a decarbonization target of 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2025, and 100% renewable energy by 2030, with specific focuses on installing distributed energy resources, (DERs) like residential solar, and increasing the amount of storage installed in the state. However, both hydropower and renewable energy purchases ​​imported from Quebec both count as renewables to GMP.

Solar in Vermont

As was outlined previously, Vermont is home to 400 MW of installed solar, with just 145 MW expected to come on-line in the next five years, according to predictive data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. Those 145 MW are 49th across all 50 states and Washington D.C. in that five-year timeframe, however, the new capacity will bring Vermont to roughly 22% of its energy needs met by solar, so it really is much more useful to talk about Vermont on a per-capita basis, rather than gross capacity totals.

As is illustrated above, much of Vermont’s capacity additions have come via utility scale installations, a fact that holds true in most states. The state has a pretty consistent capacity mix, with a relatively healthy residential market and a very strong commercial and industrial (C&I) market.

Incentives and Programs 

Outside of the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for solar installations, solar hopefuls in Vermont have a handful of different incentive and rebate programs available to them, provided by both the state and utilities. 

In addition to the Federal ITC, Vermont also has a 6.24% state-level credit for solar systems activated on or before 12/31/2022. After that date, the credit steps down to 5.28% for systems placed in service by 12/31/2022, at which point it will drop further to 2.8% indefinitely.

The state also exempts solar projects under 50 kW from statewide property taxes.

Before the system is even designed, homeowners in Vermont have policy peace of mind in the form of the state’s Solar Rights Laws. These laws forbid any sort of ordinance, bylaw, or other binding agreement to be instituted that would prohibit the installation of a solar system, though size and orientation restrictions are still allowed, assuming they don’t affect a potential project’s overall generation or economic viability.

Vermont, like every other state except Tennessee, has a statewide net metering program. Generally available to systems up to 500 kW, the rate at which customers are credited for their excess generation varies from utility to utility, though it is consistently about a cent per kWh lower than the base rate for electricity purchased from the utility. For GMP, the utility which covers about 75% of the state’s landmass and most of its population, the rate is 14.84 cents per kWh. For Vermont Electrical Cooperative customers, the rate is just under 16 cents per kWh.

The state previously had a cap on net metering, wherein the cumulative capacity of net-metered systems was limited to 15% of a utility’s peak demand; however, this was eliminated in 2017.

GMP also offers Tesla Powerwall and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) home battery programs. The BYOD program is an open incentive system for customers looking to add a battery, while the Powerwall program allows customers to lease a system at a flat rate that provides savings over a standard installation.

The BYOD program offers customers up to $10,500 in upfront incentives to purchase their own batteries through local installers. The program is set to support at least 500 customers annually, until the 5 MW yearly storage cap is reached. Under this program, participating customers agree to provide access to stored energy during peak demand times, in order to meet demand and drive down the price of electricity. Moreover, the customers have a relatively expansive list of participating battery options to choose from.

The Powerwall tariff allows up to 500 customers to enroll each year, where they can choose to pay $55 per month for two Powerwall batteries in a 10-year lease which covers standard installation, with the option of five more years at no additional cost or just pay $5,500 up front. Akin to the BYOD program, customers agree to share their stored energy with GMP during peak demand times.

Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading

In 2019, GMP launched a real-time, blockchain-tracked peer to peer energy trading platform which allows businesses to purchase solar power from customers who own the rights to the renewable energy credits via a phone app.

The program was developed to run on LO3 Energy’s existing platform, and all transactions will be tracked and verified via blockchain, allowing individuals to transact privately, but still giving GMP the ability to closely monitor the RECs as they’re moved through the marketplace. 

Participants will be able to set desired bids to purchase the local attributes. The transactions will happen live, however, GMP will monitor all transactions to verify everything is moving smoothly. The utility has proposed to take a 5% transaction fee on these transactions, paid by the seller of the RECs.

***

Last time, we reviewed the solar incentive profile of Vermont’s’ southern New England neighbor, Rhode Island, a state similarly committed to making solar one of its foundational resources for the future, but in different ways. Our next stop on the 50 states of solar incentives tour will take us out of New England and into the mid-atlantic.

Passing through Hartwell, Georgia, one would find it hard to envision the town as the center of the rapidly-evolving transition to renewable energy, at least for the time being. In many ways, Hartwell presents the classic aesthetic of the American South: rolling fields dotted with quaint ranch houses and farmsteads giving way to forests of tall pines, seemingly standing in formation, and series of creeks, brooks, and ponds, all of which attract the town’s non-human residents, namely great blue heron and whitetail deer.

That is, until you pass down another unassuming country road, down which one of the area’s dime-a-dozen big, red barns is flanked by something more familiar to clean energy veterans: a 20kW ground-mounted solar system.

If the system serves as a sign of what’s to come in the future of power generation and consumption for Georgia and the world at large, then it’s especially fitting that it belongs to longtime Hartwell resident and author of the groundbreaking book, Freeing Energy, Bill Nussey.

Published in December 2021, Freeing Energy explores the concept of our energy grid inevitably evolving in the same way that computers and the internet did – with local solar and battery storage replacing large-scale, centralized power plants as the most reliable and economical option, much in the same way personal computers and the invention of the cloud eclipsed existing mainframe technology. Using another metaphor, from the spoke-and-wheel to the network. 

Going local

It’s a concept Nussey calls “local energy,” and pv magazine had the opportunity to meet Nussey at his Hartwell farm to discuss what it means, and how the concept is already changing the world. To understand the potential of local energy, you first need to understand what Nussey means with the term and how it differs from other oft-used terms in the small-scale renewables space, like residential solar, distributed energy resources (DERs), or residential batteries. For Nussey, half the battle of presenting his vision for the world’s energy future was deciding what to call it, though he’ll be the first to tell you that others had coined the term before him.

“All the words that we usually use: DERs, behind the meter, these words are all used by groups of people that have a vested interest in the existing system,” explained Nussey. “And so it’s always in the context of this 100-year-old industry that’s outdated and needs to change. I wanted to create a new phrase that not only represented the technical dimension that it’s generated locally, but had the emotional draw. This is also about human beings. This is about families and communities.”

The main tenants behind local energy are relatively simple. Our current energy system, globally, but especially so in the United States, is outdated. Few argue this point. It was developed during a time when the idea of being able to power one’s home was novel, and when building large, centralized power stations was the most cost-effective and reliable way to deliver that power.

And while these initial arguments may no longer hold, the system remains in place, largely unchanged. All of the issues and arguments that bog down our efforts to rapidly switch to a cleaner energy supply, be they suboptimal regulatory practices, long interconnection delays, or utilities’ tooth-and-nail defense of the fossil fuel generating stations that made them profitable, all exist because of the existing power and energy framework.

Tech meets electrons

It’s an idea that Bill calls “Big Grid” in the same way that one may lump Google, Meta, and Amazon together as “Big Tech.” In Freeing Energy, the Big Grid serves as the energy transition’s antagonist, rather than the usual culprits of utilities or the regulators that oversee them. As Nussey sees it, while these actors may make contributions that stifle our transition to clean energy, their decisions are largely influenced by the need to operate in the system that they were made for: sustaining the Big Grid.

“It’s easy to kick the shins of the utility industry.” Nussey says. “Vilifying them as individual companies, or even in the industry is weak. It’s a crutch, but you always have to have a villain if you’re going to have people engaged. And so Big Grid became the villain, which really represents the status quo rather than any particular company.”

Nussey lays out that the disestablishment of this status quo is the key to transitioning to a grid powered by clean, local energy. However, the act of actually looking at a system as ingrained as the large-scale electrical grid, the regulated monopolies that exist to serve and use it, the regulators that oversee these monopolies, and all the other dozens of actors in the space is overwhelming, to say the least. 

The scope of this issue has led many, even those in the clean energy space, to question skeptically if an energy transition of any sort, let alone one rapid enough to mitigate the adversity of climate change, is even possible. To Bill Nussey, there is no question. The transition is inevitable.

Nussey outlines that large-scale change of incumbent entities comes about one of two ways: either powerfuel actors and decision-makers recognize an issue and take charge, or the public supports an issue fererenty and en masse, to the point where it can’t be ignored and action must be taken.

It’s the second avenue that Nussey sees as the mechanism local energy will use to dethrone Big Grid. And while emotions and action may not have reached the fever pitch necessary to start making tangible change quickly, support for renewables, especially small scale, consumer-sided solutions, is only growing nationally.

Popular switch

Opinion polls conducted both nationally and at the state level show overwhelming bipartisan support for the clean energy transition. 

Embold Research recently released the results of a survey given to 1360 adults living in Pennsylvania, including the southwest portion of the state, a fossil-fuel hotbed where that industry has provided jobs for decades. The survey results showed that solar energy has strong support across political, racial, gender, and regional lines, with 81% of survey respondents indicating “support” or “strong support” for rooftop solar on homes, making it more popular than coal, nuclear energy, and methane gas. 65% of respondents shared that they would like to see Pennsylvania generate more solar, citing reasons ranging from reduced air pollution to energy bill savings. Not a single demographic group or region expressed a desire for decreased solar production.

One of the core tenets of Freeing Energy is understanding that, unlike coal or natural gas, solar energy is a technology, not a fuel, meaning that it is more subject to rapid innovations and improvements, as well as dramatic cost reductions as production volume increases – also known as Wright’s Law, which open up supply chains and lower overall costs.

Understanding that solar should be thought of as a technology influencing energy in the same way that microprocessors and cloud computing are technologies that influenced the data and communications industries, parallels can be drawn from how disrupting other seemingly-immovable regulated monopolies is possible and how that disruption birthed some of the innovations that modern life is founded upon.

“AT&T fought to maintain a monopoly on long distance phone calls, and they lost,” explained Nussey, referencing the landmark 1982 decision in United States v. AT&T. “The inevitability was that there were better solutions available. AT&T recognized them, but they couldn’t adopt them nearly as fast and didn’t want to anyway. Thankfully, the courts and the government won, because there’d be no internet if AT&T held their monopoly; there would be no mobile phones. These innovations were not always inevitable, they came to be because that market became deregulated and innovators could enter the market.”

In disrupting the Big Grid, it’s not Nussey’s goal to entirely dismantle monopoly utilities and put thousands out of work. His vision still has a place for utilities, just in a different, and potentially more profitable, role. In a reality where tens of millions of homes and small communities can act as their own microgrids, managing all of these generation assets, their production, consumption, battery charging and discharging, as well as critical grid operations, like frequency regulation, will still be an immensely important industry, one that utilities are already built for. 

“The problem is that you have to have all the capacity in your house for all possible situations in your house, as do your neighbors,” Nussey says. “It’s super cheap if you just pool it with your neighbors, right, and there is no more natural group to help facilitate that pooling than the utilities.”

In a sense, instead of working as suppliers, utilities would begin to work as aggregators, marketplace management arms, and a marketplace platform.

“They go from being Walmart to being eBay,” says Nussey, always quick with an analogy. “You can’t move into the future by saying ‘I don’t want utilities,’ you can’t make utilities go away. Society as we know it would collapse … There’s good reasons why utilities are separate corporations. They can access an amount of capital that nobody wants to be taxed to pay.”

This capital to which utilities have access could also be used to help bring local energy to those who aren’t able to afford solar and storage systems for themselves, or those whose living spaces can’t accommodate the installations. However, many times the exact opposite rhetoric is used to downplay the potential of local energy, using the age-old argument that those using their own energy are raising the cost of service to those who don’t, usually in an economically disproportionate fashion.

“You hear utilities saying, ‘Holy cow, if the wealthy people put solar on their roof, that’s going to raise the cost of the grid for poor people.’” Nussey explained. “If you have an asset-driven business, including the grid, you are shifting costs … If you live in a poorer area of an inner city, the cost of wiring each apartment is very small, right? But you’re paying the same rate as we are out here in a rural part. Low-income people in a dense city are subsidizing rural people who are paying the same rate, but they have 1000s of miles of wires connecting them to the grid, whereas hundreds of feet would be enough to connect the inner-city families.”

Freeing Energy dives into the hypocrisy of the cost-shift arguments as it pertains to residential solar, as well as the issues of energy equity and the burden of solar’s soft costs much deeper than is possible in a single article. 

The story of local energy does not end with Freeing Energy, however and it is Nussey’s hope that his book will be able to play a part in the energy transition that he sees as inevitable; one which will provide access to cheap electricity and resiliency to everyone, without relying on the sluggish reluctance of Big Grid.

Residents of Montgomery County Maryland now have access to a cleaner, more local energy mix, as Summit Ridge Energy reached commercial operations on a 2.5 MW community solar project located in Spencerville.

TurningPoint Energy developed the project under the State of Maryland’s Community Solar Pilot Program, of which Summit Ridge Energy owns the market share, with 90 MW currently in operation. The array was built on Cedar Ridge Community Church’s (CRCC) property and will provide hundreds of subscribed households with lower monthly energy costs.

“This community solar project is the culmination of an excellent partnership between the community and County” Councilmember Tom Hucker said. “In 2018, I spearheaded ZTA 18-01 that allowed for larger solar projects like this one so we can better position ourselves to fight climate change and collectively reduce our carbon footprint.”

ZTA 18-01 was a zoning amendment, passed in 2018, which revised the county’s existing Solar Collection System use standards to allow larger facilities in Rural Residential, Residential, Commercial/Residential, Employment, and Industrial zones.

While the CRCC project is the county’s only ground-mount community solar project thus far, it won’t be for long. In 2021, Ameresco and Neighborhood Sun announced plans to construct a 6 MW project on the capped Oaks Landfill in Gaithersburg, just northwest of Washington, D.C. The 6 MW project will be divided into three 2 MW arrays, with Array 1 set to provide the county government with power. The remaining two arrays compose the community solar project with all of the generated electricity provided to low-to-moderate income residents.

Montgomery County has a local goal of eliminating greenhouse emissions in its operations by 2035, on top of the state of Maryland’s goal to generate 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

In September 2021 regulators in Maryland unanimously voted to expand the capacity of the state’s community solar program as well as improve access for low- and moderate-income (LMI) customer participation in the state’s Community Solar Pilot Program.

According to the Coalition for Community Solar Access, the expansion of the program will allow community solar to power the equivalent of an additional 6,840 Maryland homes, annually. The expansion also changed development regulations, allowing community solar projects to be built on clean-fill construction sites, transforming previously unusable industrial locations into clean solar energy generation sites.

The Department of Commerce (DOC) released a memo that provides some significant clarifications on its ongoing investigation into solar cell and module manufacturers in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

While much of the memo is reiterated and more clearly-defined information than we have had since it was first announced, the memo includes two key developments:

1. Wafers produced outside of China with polysilicon sourced from China are not subject to these circumvention inquiries
2. In the event of an affirmative preliminary or final determination, the tariff rate instituted to any of the countries under investigation will be equal to the Chinese manufacturer’s and/or exporter’s company-specific rate being circumvented in the first place

The first conclusion means that, so long as manufacturers are using non-Chinese polysilicon in their products, they are in no violation (more on how this changes the US available module supply outlook to follow), while the second provides considerable clarity as to how tariffs would be instituted and at what rate: a significant unknown prior to this memo.

American Clean Power Association (ACP) CEO, Heather Zichal, put out a statement saying that the memo “perpetuates the market confusion that is currently stifling the US solar industry.” ROTH, in an industry note, reiterated this point, saying that it provided little clarity and qualified as “no news at all.”

Zichal continued to offer her two main takeaways:

1.  “Solar wafer manufacture outside of China is not meant to be within the scope of this circumvention case. This should not have been a question because the precedent on the substantial nature of cell manufacturing is clear and has been for over a decade.”
2.  “At the same time, Commerce is foreshadowing a tariff structure that is ambiguous and unstable at best, and will very likely extend the project-killing effect that Commerce has already caused.”

How much non-Chinese polysilicon is there?

So manufacturers are free to continue exporting modules to the US, so long as those modules use wafers and ingots manufactured outside of China. Great, simple enough. So how much available polysilicon manufacturing is there outside of China?

To answer this, pv magazine spoke with Joseph Johnson, manager of Market Intelligence at Clean Energy Associates (CEA). The reality, at least so far, is not an optimistic one.

“It’s not a good picture at all,” said Johnson, who went onto estimate that around 97% of all ingots and wafers manufactured today are being made in China, a percentage demographic that he does not see changing in the near future.

“Today, if you’re looking at the market by the end of this year, we’re tracking around 16.5 GW of nameplate, non-China ingot and wafer manufacturing. A large bulk [7 GW] is only going to really be usable by the end or later to this year from Jinkosolar… So when you look at it, it’s essentially around nine to 10 GW of capacity that’s likely to be operable this year. And that figure starts to get even smaller when you look at how long some of these older capacities have been on the market.”

These older capacities that make up a large portion of the roughly 10 GW pool of modules available to the US are not applicable to the new industry standard 182 mm cell size, meaning the available capacity for use in modern utility scale installations shrinks even more.

While the outlook is certainly less than optimal, all of the capacity set to come in the near future will be from tier-1 manufacturers making modules for modern utility applications. As referenced earlier, Jinkosolar will soon have production up and running at its $500 million, 7 GW ingot and wafer manufacturing facility in the coastal economic zone of Vietnam’s Quang Ninh province. In addition, JA Solar is expected to increase its module and ingot manufacturing operations in Vietnam to 6 GW by 2023. The company also has 1.5 GW of cell capacity in Malaysia. Longi also has some capacity that is expected to be usable for export to the US.

Johnson went on to assert that many of these tier-1 Chinese manufacturers were already looking to move their ingot and wafer operations outside of China, partially triggered by the alleged use of forced labor in China’s Xinjiang province and resulting fallout. While that move was already in progress, the DOC investigation has begun to serve as a further catalyst.

Johnson said that, in the short term, existing tier-1 manufacturers will be able to mobilize quickest to fill capacity needs, but the investigation also opens to door for more prominent ingot and wafer manufacturing operations across Europe and in India.

“So in India, there’s certainly a pretty big push to get some base ingot and wafer production online,” said Johnson. “There’s also a pretty big resurgence in Europe. MoreSun and Norwegian Crystals, both of those suppliers have announced some pretty aggressive ramp up timelines to get multi-gigawatt scale and get ingot production online and up from just one gigawatt today.”

Once you get away from the largest players with the most resources, Johnson said, timelines increase:

“The timelines for those are probably going to be pretty long, four to five years, since a lot of this know-how has to be either purchased, or researched, or developed in house, which is likely to really prolong that timeline of actually bringing non-China options to the market.”

Calling for an end

Nationally, sentiment is rising against the DOC investigation, as 22 Senators and two governors have officially called on DOC to deliver an expedited and negative preliminary decision.

Joining Governor Newsom’s call is Indiana Governor, Eric Holcomb, who wrote to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo saying:

I urge the Department of Commerce to reach a determination as quickly as possible to restore clarity and certainty regarding solar products, so the State of Indiana, our utilities, and other private sector partners can better understand and plan for an economical energy transition, in which solar is poised to play a key role.

Indiana has been one of the states hit hardest by the DOC investigation’s fallout. Northern Indiana Public Service Company uncertainty and delays brought to the solar panel are forcing the utility to delay the closure of two coal generation plants from to 2025, back from an original date of 2023. According to NIPSCO, most solar projects that the utility originally scheduled for completion in 2022 and 2023 will experience delays of approximately 6 to 18 months. In total, NIPSCO’s project uncertainties represent roughly $2 billion in delayed investment.

Indiana was one of 13 states in the Solar Energy industries Association’s (SEIA) most recent publication of its anti-circumvention investigation impact survey to have 100% of respondents share that they were experiencing delayed or canceled module supply. It also joined Idaho as the two states to have respondents report that 100% of the state’s development pipeline has been delayed by the DOC investigation.

Those who responded to SEIA’s survey with specific project data outlined that, so far, 3.6 GW of solar projects have been delayed or canceled as a direct result of the investigation, the fourth-most of any state in the country. SEIA projected Indiana to add 6.7 GW of solar over the next 5 years, meaning that over half of that pipeline is already in jeopardy.

As for hopes of a speedy resolution, a letter that Secretary Raimondo sent to 14 legislators offers DOC’s perspective as to why the investigation can’t be dropped like a hot and highly unpopular potato

First, let me assure you that the Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to addressing climate change by reducing reliance on fossil fuels. We stand ready to work with you and Congress to advance legislation that would provide incentives to bolster renewable energy. In addition, the Department of Commerce stands ready to work with Congress to diversify our supply chains and develop greater domestic solar manufacturing capacity here at home.

After some case background, Raimondo assures each of the 14 legislators that “like all trade remedy proceedings, Commerce will conduct these circumvention inquiries in a fair and transparent manner, and in accordance with all applicable US laws and regulations.” As Raimondo puts it, DOC is required by statute to investigate a claim that companies operating in other countries in the region are trying to circumvent existing duties. DOC is merely doing its job.

The Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia (Commission) has released its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) Report for Compliance Year 2021, an annually required report which highlights the progress that the city is making on its RPS initiatives, with data current through the end of 2021.

According to the report, 2021 saw a significant expansion of RPS-certified solar facilities, despite challenges stemming from the pandemic and other market fluctuations, with a total of 2,337 new solar energy systems approved for the RPS program. D.C.’s RPS electricity suppliers must buy 100% of their power from renewable sources by 2032, with 5% coming from local solar power, meaning systems in the D.C. area.

Of the 2,337 new solar energy systems approved for the RPS program in 2021, 2,077 were located within D.C., with 82 of those systems being community solar installations. Since the RPS system certification program began, regulators have certified 10,013 solar energy systems in D.C., representing 154.7 MW of capacity. Of all systems, 219 are certified community solar installations, up from just 9 in 2018. These community solar facilities contribute 26.5 total MW of capacity.

The report notes a total of 12,955 solar energy systems certified for RPS, amounting to a total capacity of 191.8 MW. With 191.8 MW of certified systems to date, D.C. is actually outpacing the solar procurement requirement outlined in the RPS, which required the city to source 2.5% of its electricity from solar by the end of 2021. According to estimates, that would mean roughly 182 MW of solar would need to be installed by that date, a figure which was surpassed by nearly 10 MW.

A more solar future?

D.C. is home to one of the most aggressive RPS mandates in the country. Utilities operating in the district are required to source 100% of their electricity from renewable energy by 2032, with at least 5% of that power coming from solar energy. Thus 5% figure could grow, however, thanks to some interesting language as to how the solar carve-out operates:

If the solar energy achieved in a given year exceeds the solar energy standard in that year, the solar energy standard of the subsequent year shall increase by one plus the percentage difference between the solar industry standard in that year and the actual percentage of solar achieved for that year, multiplied by the subsequent year’s solar energy standard, provided that the solar energy standard shall not exceed a percentage to equates to a total installed capacity of 1.68 GW.

Noting the hardships that solar faced in 2021, the commission’s report also outlines that growth in solar energy facilities certified for the RPS program continued in the first quarter of 2022, with 720 new systems added, including 42 community solar installations. The report does not project out beyond Q1, 2022, so it is entirely unclear as of yet how the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) investigation into solar cell and module manufacturers in four southeast Asian Countries will factor into 2022 installation totals.

While the DOC investigation has been described as a utility-scale sector killer, the ripples and lack of module availability will be felt throughout the entire industry. As of the Solar Energy Industries Association’s (SEIA) most recent data, the majority of solar companies in D.C. have been reporting delayed or canceled module shipments, with these same companies expecting the investigation to have a severe or devastating impact on their company and ability to do business.

While the full scope is unknown, it is unlikely that 2022 will be the same year for solar RPS progress that 2021 was.

Solar For All

According to the report, one avenue that the commission is looking to use to expand the construction of solar systems throughout the District, is through D.C.’s Solar For All program, a portfolio of projects helping the city reach its 100% renewable energy target by 2032 and cutting utility bills in half for 100,000 low- and moderate-income households.

The program also includes a job training initiative, run by GRIDAlternatives, targeted at preparing the city’s low-income youth for careers in solar. Such social equity goals, while not primary program drivers, are an essential part of Solar For All, according to Tommy Wells, director of the Department of Energy & Environment, as are a focus on innovation and sharing lessons learned on what does and doesn’t work.

For decades, environmental justice communities, often low-income communities and communities of color, have been overwhelmingly targeted to host fossil fuel plants and other polluting facilities near their homes. The proximity to this toxic infrastructure has not only exposed these communities to disproportionate health hazards and higher utility bills, but also made them much more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The environmental justice movement, which began in earnest decades ago, has been led by frontline organizers that have fought tirelessly against the flawed environmental and economic policies and practices that led to these inequities.

As much of the country moves forward on clean energy, we have a responsibility to ensure that the disadvantaged communities, those that have been harmed and exploited by our polluting systems, are at the front and center of the transition and involved in all decisions that impact their everyday lives. This effort will require intentional investments at the state and federal levels, whether it is through carve outs in legislation or new regulations, to ensure clean energy is accessible, affordable, and equitable.

New York’s regulatory pathway

New York has historically been a leader in battling the climate crisis and is moving in the right direction when it comes to energy justice. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (CLCPA) committed investments in wind and solar as its transition to a zero-emissions economy. The law also requires a minimum of 40% of all state climate and equity spending to go to frontline Black, brown, and low-income communities.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the state’s energy regulatory body, released a roadmap in December 2021 detailing the state’s plan to achieve the Hochul Administration’s goal of 10 GW of new distributed solar by 2030. The plan includes $1.7 billion in funding for solar projects, and calls for 1.6 GW of newly deployed solar to benefit disadvantaged communities.

These are worthy goals, but the roadmap still falls short when it comes to economic equity and energy justice. Residents of disadvantaged communities stand to reap only a tiny percentage of the Roadmap’s $1.5 billion budget bill savings. Further, the incentive-based plan fails to include a meaningful commitment to community-led solar projects or wealth building for residents of these communities who sign up for the program.

Community solar, in particular, is critical to the New York City area. New York City residents often don’t own their own homes, but rent, live in multifamily housing or apartment buildings where they may not be able to commit to expensive energy efficiency appliances or rooftop solar panels. 

Illinois leads the way through legislation

Right now, the state of Illinois should be our North Star when it comes to energy justice. Six months ago, the state passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), which at its core focuses on the intersecting crises of climate change, racism, and economic disinvestment. The act sets targets for phasing out coal and natural gas in favor of cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar power and prioritizes job training, hiring, ownership, and new business creation for low-income, environmental justice communities. The new law also funds community solar projects to help disadvantaged communities that routinely face higher utility bills.

Perhaps the most significant part of Illinois’ new law lies within its intentions. The state made energy justice a pillar of the legislation: it was not an afterthought, but rather legislators wouldn’t have passed the bill and the Governor wouldn’t have signed it had there not been a serious set of equity commitments in it. Through the drafting and negotiation process, frontline communities were centered and their leads followed. Of course, the work doesn’t end when a bill is signed. Today, advocates across the state are continuing efforts to ensure that CEJA’s provisions are implemented in a way that honors the bill’s intentions and puts equity at the forefront.

Other states making progress

New York chose to tackle energy justice commitments through more of a regulatory lens while Illinois opted for the legislative route to address them. Both of these approaches are acceptable  when it comes to energy justice and highlight a path for other states to ultimately reach this shared goal.

For example, a coalition of environmental and social justice advocates in New Jersey are working to pass the Clean Energy Equity Act, which passed the State Senate in 2020, and it is now being considered by the Legislature for a second time. The bill would permanently establish an Office of Clean Energy Equity to ensure equitable deployment of solar, efficiency, and storage solutions in New Jersey’s overburdened communities. If the bill becomes law, these measures will greatly benefit residents of communities in and around Newark that have long been on the front lines of overlapping health, climate, economic, and racial crises.

In Pennsylvania, Governor Wolf and the state’s Legislative Black Caucus marked the 30-year anniversary of Pennsylvania’s environmental justice movement last year by introducing a package of bills, aiming to ensure that low-income  communities and communities of color who have long been shut out of the energy planning process, will have a seat at the table as the state transitions to clean energy.

Policymakers and advocates need to be intentional about centering the experiences and demands of those impacted by energy injustice for far too long. Legislators, who have been supportive of climate action, must now become champions of environmental and energy justice. Likewise, energy regulators have a responsibility to ensure that everyone reaps the benefits of affordable and accessible clean energy.

Finally, we must encourage more states — red and blue — to take broader action when it comes to a clean energy transition that benefits everyone and leaves nobody behind. As national conversations about the climate crisis increase, states across political leanings are considering action on climate and clean energy — but policy is only sustainable if it’s equitable. A common goal we should all share is one that ensures low-income and environmental justice communities are first in line to benefit from a full suite of clean energy technologies that will reduce their household energy burden and safeguard against the impacts of climate change.

Stephan Roundtree, Jr. is the Northeast Senior Regional Director at Vote Solar, a national solar advocacy non-profit. Olivia Nedd is Vote Solar’s Senior Policy Director, Access and Equity.

Read Solar surges in Illinois following passage of landmark clean energy law.