Building a Brighter Future: Supporting Just & Equitable Community Solar Projects in Vermont

By 350VT Intern, Claire Greenburger

In 2019, Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA), an organization working to eliminate the root causes of poverty in Southern Vermont, installed a community solar array to meet the energy needs of low-income households. They “get power applied to their electric bill through the net metering program here in Vermont, and they're able to save on their bill,” explains Benjamin Bolaski, Energy Auditor at SEVCA. The solar array demonstrates “new, nationally relevant, scalable model of energy assistance, enabling low-income households to meet their energy needs while supporting the development of renewable energy resources.”

SEVCA’s Community Solar for Community Action project sets the precedent for how to facilitate a just transition in Vermont. Due to the limited resources and financial constraints, not all Vermonters have access to solar power. “The model that we have facilitated here . . . plays a key role in addressing renewable energy goals because of the basic fact that not everybody owns a home,” says Bolaski. “Folks that rent or don't have a suitable location for solar due to shading or orientation of their house can take advantage and invest in renewable energy locally.”

This legislative session, 350Vermont is committed to significantly increase the amount of renewable energy we produce in Vermont. Developing more community solar projects is a critical step in achieving this goal and in creating an energy future that benefits working people.

Norwich Solar, a Vermont solar installation company, offers Vermonters the opportunity to buy shares in community solar arrays in exchange for credits on their electric bills. “Community solar projects are kind of our bread and butter,” says Diana Wood, Director of Marketing & Outreach at Norwich Solar. “We build them, buy or lease the land, and then find off-takers . . . Those are the people that benefit from the solar energy generation through net metering.”

“Serving low and moderate income [households] is a priority for our organization,” says Wood. “52% of the projects serve low income housing. And 17% were for schools and municipalities. 16% for dairy and agriculture businesses, and then 14% for businesses.”

Vermont rooftop solar installation. Photo credit: Norwich Solar

In response to the rising costs of dairy production in Vermont, Norwich Solar has sought to alleviate some of these financial burdens by offering Community Solar subscriptions that cut costs that farmers pay on their monthly energy bills. “For dairy farmers, margins are small and budgets are tight. They're not making a lot of money. So anything that our company can do to help reduce or stabilize their energy costs is helpful,” says Wood. At Pirouette Farm, Norwich Solar installed two 60.3kW roof mounted arrays, which powers the farm and provides community solar in Norwich, VT. The system is expected to offset over 1,905,863 lbs of carbon emissions over its 30-year production life. 

The Vermont Law School supports low-income community solar by offering free legal assistance to towns and communities and in Vermont developing solar projects. “We've been focusing a lot on ownership,” says Kevin Jones, the Director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. “The reason for that is that we're trying to provide the most economic benefits that we can add to our participants. A lot of other third party models result in expensive tax equity,” Jones explains. “We want our efforts to be focused on real decarbonisation for the communities and actual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. And that has been probably the most challenging aspect of our work in Vermont over the years.” 

Jones warns against Vermont solar companies that are taking advantage of customers. Certain companies are stripping the renewable energy credits (RECs) from the net-metered solar products for additional profit. This results in customers believing they are getting solar energy from a community solar array, when, in reality, “the company is instead selling their solar energy to a third party, often a utility outside the state,” Jones reports. Direct ownership of solar arrays provides the greatest financial benefits to community members and actually reduces solar customers' carbon footprints. It is critical for solar customers to understand these distinctions in ownership in order to have the greatest environmental impact and to reduce personal energy costs. 

As Vermonters transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources––such as solar power––we need to make sure we get it right. “What a lot of people call community solar to us is not community solar,” says Jones. He hopes that the legislator makes “sure that what people think is community solar is actually community solar and that the participants are actually reducing their carbon footprints.” This can be achieved by paying “the same net metering rate to people who don’t sell their solar out of state and keep it bundled with their local electricity. It’s a very simple change that would require the utilities to pay people the same net metering rate. . . Let people keep their RECs and don’t penalize them.” 

If your solar is bundled with your local electricity, the REC is retired to the utility but cannot be sold on the secondary market. That electricity then counts towards Vermont’s in-state renewable energy targets. Keeping RECs is very expensive because you are penalized 4 cents per kWh for the life of the agreement. For people to decarbonize and save money, we need to ensure that the utility has to count solar toward the state goal, instead of seeking to profit by trading RECs out of state. 

However, after years of unsuccessfully advocating for these legislative changes, Jones feels discouraged by the policy side of things. “Unfortunately, to me, the legislature is much more focused on the appearance of being a clean energy leader than really providing clean energy leadership,” he says. 

Protesters at the Climate & Energy Justice Rally on 2/11/23. Photo credit: Fritz Senftleber

350Vermont is calling for policies that put an end to unbundled RECs. The Renewable Energy Standard (RES) law, originally passed in 2017, requires utilities to provide a certain percentage of our supply of electricity from renewable sources. The issue with the RES is that it allows utilities to meet their renewable-energy obligations by purchasing renewable energy credits (RECs) while providing nonrenewable energy. It also allows utilities to meet obligations by selling RECs out of state and purchasing substitute RECs from other regions with questionable greenhouse gas reduction value. 

350Vermont is calling for a revised RES that prioritizes in-state renewable energy and ends the use of unbundled RECs. The RES, in its current form, makes the in-state production of cleaner, affordable energy (like solar and wind) more expensive. 

We are legally required to have at least 75% of our electricity coming from renewable sources by 2032. If we continue on our current path, counting energy as “renewable” that doesn’t truly reduce emissions, we won’t be able to meet the emission reduction targets required by science. A revised RES would lower costs of renewable energy and deliver the greatest economic and environmental benefits to Vermonters long-term.