Community solar enables utility customers to buy or lease panels in a local solar array, or purchase clean energy from the solar facility—and receive credits on their utility bill.
Nine out of 10 people in the U.S. want to harness the sun’s energy, but only 22 to 27 percent of residential rooftops are properly sited to host a pv inverter system, reveals the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The E&Y report urges utilities to offer differentiated products with more pricing options, and community solar does precisely this. By providing its ratepayers the opportunity to use solar power at the level they feel comfortable with, a utility can satisfy a range of consumer demands.
Community solar is basically a cooperative; it works perfectly with the cooperative business model. Having a solar facility or any generation facility that the members can own themselves is just a perfect match.
Increasing demands of the antiquated utility infrastructure can threaten grid stability. But, as some power companies argue, so can the excess renewable energy fed back to the grid from rooftop arrays. Community solar can help mitigate the risks of brownouts and blackouts resulting from rising energy consumption and an increase in residential distributed generation.
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