Community solar allows anyone the ability to benefit from solar power and reduce your bills, even if you can’t put solar panels on your roof.
Note: There are no affiliate links in this page or on this site. I make no money if you decide to do something because I talked about it. You can trust me.
I’ve always been a bit of an energy nerd. I think batteries are fascinating, which is probably why I’ve always loved the Toyota Prius, since well before it was winning awards on style.
And to this end, I’ve always been interested in solar power, and the self-sovereignty that surrounds it. The idea that I could put up a solar panel on my roof and get free energy from it, is just too cool to resist.
Yet, I’ve always had to resist. All my adult life, I’ve either lived in apartment buildings or shared-ownership dwellings where I can’t put something on my roof just because I want to.
In all other circumstances, that would be that. However, I’ve been tracking my electric bill recently, and it’s up 25% month on month over the past two years, which is not nothing.
So recently I idly restarted my search into solar energy again. If I couldn’t put a solar panel on my roof, could I put one in my window? (Yes, but it won’t do anything.) In my backyard? (Not enough direct sunlight.) Somewhere down the block?
It was this that led me to the discovery of “community solar”, the idea that you can get most of the benefits of solar power without, you know, actually owning the panels.
Is this worthwhile? Is this a scam? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
What is community solar?
Community solar is a program that allows people to benefit from solar energy even if they can’t install solar panels on their own property.
In community solar, a company owns and operates the solar farm, and you “join” as a member. Then the you get a rebate on your energy bill based on your energy usage, or the company works with your utility company directly and lowers your bill.
The Department of Energy has a nice page about community solar:
Community solar projects generate electricity from sunlight and the electricity flows through a meter to the utility grid. Community solar subscribers (i.e., households, businesses, or any other electricity customer) pay for a share of the electricity generated by the community solar project. This is typically in the form of a monthly subscription fee.
The local utility pays the community solar provider for the energy generated, and each subscriber receives a portion of the dollar value generated by their community solar subscription as a credit. Typically, this credit is applied directly to a subscriber’s monthly electric bill, helping to reduce customers’ electricity costs.
Does this seem too good to be true? What was the catch? I decided to look into it for myself.
Finding a community solar provider
Most states allow community solar projects.
I live in Oregon, which means we have lots of space for solar projects (on the eastern side of the state) and lots of interest in renewable energy (on the western side of the state).
And it turns out that Oregon is one of four states that offer “utility billed” community solar, which means that; the solar company and utility company figure out how much you earn/owe/save, and your bill is adjusted accordingly; the customer has to do nothing at all. Other states that offer community solar still give you the same benefits, but the credits are dealt with separately from your utility bill.
After a bunch of searching, I found a company called Arcadia which appeared to fulfill all of my (admittedly modest) needs. Arcadia owns a bunch of solar farms around the state, and is building more. They seemed to be the logical choice in my area.
Arcadia promised a 5-10% reduction in my utility bill, and all without having to pay a single fee.
Sign up was pretty easy. I created an account, entered my meter details (which I found on my normal electric bill), and agreed to some terms, none of which seemed onerous.
And that was basically it. I was put on a waiting list and told that I would be notified.
Is this a scam?
This definitely seemed to be too good to be true. How often does something save you money without any downside?
More troubling, I went to Reddit to look up community solar, and found some people with some questionable experiences with Arcadia, and asking if it was a scam.
The consensus on these posts seemed to be that the service was legit, but that there were salespeople who were a bit overambitious in their selling of the service. Okay, fine.
Presumably, the community solar organizers make much more money than give out in rebates. Therefore, the more people they sign up, the more money they make. All they need to do is keep building solar farms to meet the demand.
But since it was free to join, and they didn’t even require a credit card, I figured I had nothing to lose.
Stay tuned?
And that, alas, is where the story ends for now. I signed up months ago, and am still on the waiting list, with not a single community solar credit to my name.
I was hoping that I could write about my experience with community solar, but after waiting so long, I realized that this was potentially two different topics anyway.
So when I finally get off the waiting list and am able to make full use of community solar, I will report back.
In the meantime, if you want to learn more about community solar, you can do so here, or do a search for “community solar” with your state’s name, as the rules for each state are slightly different.
Hopefully, we’ll all eventually be able to make better use of the sun’s energy for our needs soon. We’ve got enough of both, so it makes perfect sense to connect them.
