Earth Matters: Biden's IRA plan extends solar to low-income people, EVs surge

For the tens of millions of Americans who rent, whose roofs and yards are unsuitable for solar panels, or whose wallets aren’t ample enough to cover upfront costs of $20,000 or more, collecting on the promise of getting cheap, clean energy from the sun isn’t easy. 

Years ago, idealists who wanted to see the benefits of solar spread beyond the white and affluent—as described in this Berkley Lab report—to communities of color and people on the low end of the income scale saw community solar as a means to that end. Unfortunately, while many community solar projects in the 39 states that now encourage them are perfectly fine and deliver the goods, many do not. The very nature of third party-owned community solar systems means too many of the benefits advantage the developer, not the consumer.  

The typical way it works is a developer signs up subscribers—local businesses, municipalities, owned and rented residences—and builds a (usually) small solar array that generates electricity transferred to the grid. Each subscriber receives a credit on their monthly utility bill for the electricity they used against their share of the community solar project’s output. In addition to the environmental benefits, bills can be reduced by as much as 15%, but it’s a lot less than that in many cases. For a good summary, check out the National Renewable Energy Lab and Berkeley Lab’s “Community Solar: Overview, ownership models, and the benefits of locally-owned community solar projects” published in June. In addition to limits on utility bill reductions, solar tax credits—federal, state, and local—don’t accrue to the subscriber, and cancellation penalties can be onerous.

Alternatives to this third-party approach exist. Among them are cooperatives and the Solar for All provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that includes $7 billion to cover grants for about 60 solar energy projects in disadvantaged neighborhoods around the country. The latter effort may seem paltry, and it is, but the projects that prove most successful could serve as models for widespread adoption if Democrats gain congressional majorities willing to pass something more like the defeated Build Back Better Act than the far less abundantly funded IRA.