With Rooftop Solar Energy Out Of Reach For Many, Here’s What 'Community Solar' Could Do For Us

Mar 12, 2023

California has been a leader in generating solar power on rooftops and in massive solar fields in the desert and other rural areas. But the state has lagged when it comes to "community solar," which advocates say has harmed renters and pollution-burdened neighborhoods that have had the least access to clean energy so far.

Community solar refers to moderately large solar projects — not "utility-scale," like those massive solar fields in the desert, but also not rooftop solar. Customers can then subscribe to or jointly own these projects. Unlike rooftop solar, community solar programs don't necessarily involve a direct connection from your home to the solar power site.

Community solar systems work by a process called "virtual allocation," which means that when you sign up for the program, your bill then becomes attached to a specific community solar project site that is near where you live (though not always). It's essentially a subscription service that allows eligible customers to receive a credit on their monthly utility bills.

Community solar doesn't have to be on the house or building it's serving, so it opens up solar access to people who can't install panels on their own roofs. Rooftop solar has primarily benefited wealthy, white homeowners across California, but 44% of Californians rent and the areas most affected by air and carbon pollution are largely communities of color.

"Community solar and storage is really the necessary path for a majority of low income communities and renters who don't have the capital credit or home ownership to install solar panels on their roofs," said Alexis Sutterman, Energy Equity Program Manager at the California Environmental Justice Alliance, or CEJA.

The group has advocated for reforming existing community solar programs, which have not seen much success.

Since 2013, California has attempted to scale up community solar in areas overburdened by pollution, but those efforts have been slow mostly because it's way more expensive to install solar in urban areas.

"The cost of doing community solar development in urban areas has been one of the factors that's driven the development of solar in desert areas," said Robert Cudd, who researches community solar at UCLA's California Center for Sustainable Communities. "You're not just building new infrastructure. You have to find a place, a property, a location in space where you can actually put these things. That has been prohibitively expensive for private solar developers."

Cudd said California's existing community solar programs — the Green Tariff Shared Renewables Enhanced Community Program and the Community Solar-Green Tariff Program — have also largely been geared towards developers rather than communities.

That's made it tough for nonprofits such as CEJA to initiate community-driven community solar projects.

"It has felt almost as if they were set up to fail," said Sutterman. "With stringent limitations and eligibility criteria, they did not allow for projects to scale and reach low-income communities. Furthermore, utilities have been negligent in conducting marketing, education, and outreach to communities about these programs."

And because California is already generating more solar power during the day than it can use (since we don't yet have enough battery storage for that power), the finances are even less appealing for building moderately sized community solar projects, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

"Partially due to these market conditions, as there is less value for solar electricity during the sunniest time of the day, the economics of these projects is challenging," a spokesperson for the agency stated in an email to LAist.

A bill that passed the legislature last year, AB 2316, aims to rectify some of these issues. The bill, signed into law last year, has a broad array of support from environmental justice and climate groups to solar developers to ratepayer advocates. The law adds battery storage into the equation and changes the compensation structure for energy use. But advocates worry the state is moving too slowly and will miss out on unprecedented federal funding to get projects scaled up quickly.

The law changes the current community solar game in several ways:

Brandon Smithwood, a longtime community solar advocate on the industry side who helped author the bill, is the director of policy at Dimension Renewable Energy, a solar developer. He said the bill makes community solar far more financially viable for developers, while being thoughtful about serving communities that need it most."These projects are not going to face the delays that we've seen with the bigger projects," Smithwood said. "These projects also don't rely on transmission lines through bone-dry forests to deliver their power. They're delivering the power where it's being produced. So this is a way to get around some of the challenges that the state has had in continuing its energy transition and keeping the lights on."

Smithwood worries the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, is moving too slowly to finalize its implementation rules and may risk losing out on billions of federal dollars available via the Inflation Reduction Act.

The CPUC told LAist it is on track to propose final rules later this summer.

"The timing of that decision is really critical," Smithwood said.

Community solar has big implications for the Southland. Strategically placed community solar could offset the pollution from what are called peaker plants — or gas-fired power plants that the state turns to when the grid is getting stressed by extremely high demand, usually on those hot summer evenings.

These power plants are located in some of the state's most pollution-burdened communities in the L.A. Basin and Inland Empire, including Compton, Long Beach and Ontario.

In response to the escalating climate crisis, the state has extended the life of some of these peaker plants in order to keep the lights and A/C on during summer heat waves. But those peaker plants then worsen local air pollution and add to the carbon pollution fueling extreme heat waves in the first place.

If deployed successfully, community solar in those areas could offset peaker plant use by as much as 61% as soon as 2025, according to Smithwood. But that scale-up won't be possible if the federal funding deadlines are missed, Smithwood said.

"The L.A. County, San Bernardino County region really is one of the places that has the most to lose — losing these federal dollars will mean that most of the projects won't get done," Smithwood said. "We really need that federal support to make the economics work in places like Compton and Ontario and San Bernardino."

It would also save money for local ratepayers who subscribe, while the battery storage component would keep power more reliable, Sutterman with CEJA said.

"This will mean cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable power that can especially help low-income and environmental justice communities," Sutterman said. "California has not prioritized investment in community solar-plus-storage, despite the potential it holds to advance statewide goals such as increasing local and system-wide reliability, retiring gas plants, and advancing equity and environmental justice."

Only time will tell if AB 2316 fixes some of California's community solar problem, but the rush to capitalize on federal funding shouldn't overshadow efforts to make sure communities are centered in the decision making process, Cudd said.

"We hope for a more democratic and community-driven approach to these things rather than just a rush to utilize federal funding as it's available," Cudd said. "What we really want is for people to be able to have a hand in planning and designing and being involved in the process."

CPUC is expected to propose final rules later this summer.