New York City’s public housing authority is taking bids in a plan to lease its roofs for community solar projects that could power thousands of urban homes.
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Miguel Rodriguez, who grew up in public housing in New
York, is developing skills as a solar installer through a public
housing-connected program. Credit: New York City Housing Authority
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When
you look out across New York City from the top of the Empire State
Building, thousands of empty rooftops come into view. They could be ripe
for solar panels, but the overwhelming majority of residents and
business owners inside are renters with no control over those sunny
patches of real estate.
The
city's public housing authority, the largest public housing landlord in
the United States, recognizes the potential, and it has a plan to put
hundreds of those rooftops to work.
In
January, the authority will start reviewing bids for phase one of a
project to increase the amount of solar power generated in the city.
It's a small step, but one could that could help grow the market for
urban solar power. The goal is to install 25 megawatts of solar panels
atop the city's public housing buildings, enough capacity to power 6,600
households, as part of New York City's 100 percent renewable commitment.
There's one catch: The New York City Public Housing Authority (NYCHA) can't directly use that power. It already has a deal with the electric utility Con Edison.
Instead,
the authority plans to lease its rooftops for community solar
projects―an arrangement that will allow companies to install solar
panels in one location and sell the energy to customers who can't
install their own.
"Our
goal is to help solar power be accessible by anybody in New York City,
which is not the case currently," said Daphne Boret-Camguilhem, senior
program manager for energy and sustainability at NYCHA. By expanding the
use of rootop solar, New York City would not only reduce its carbon
footprint―the city has a goal to cut emissions 80 percent by 2050, and buildings are its largest sources of greenhouse gases―but also create renewable energy jobs for low-income residents and connect more communities to cleaner, cheaper power.
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A view across New York City's Roosevelt Island shows expanses of unused roof space. Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
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Solstice, a company that connects customers to community solar projects, says projects like this can start to reach a massive gap in the solar market: the 77 percent of Americans who cannot access
rooftop solar because they have a shaded roof, rent their property, or
have low income or a credit history that prevents them from purchasing
panels.
"Many people are skeptical of the idea of community solar
because it sounds too good to be true: you're saving money and switching
to supporting clean energy, without having to put anything on your
roof," said Kelly Roache, senior program manager for Solstice. "We get
people to come learn about how that works, through relationships and
trust-building. We're peeling back the layers to see what has prevented
them from accessing it."
Most
community solar projects work in one of two ways: community solar
"gardens" are organized by cooperatives or communities that own a solar
farm, or space for solar panels is leased from large developers or
landowners.
Financing
for these projects varies depending on state regulations, but one
common model is for a utility or other company to buy about 40 percent
of the power, with the remaining 60 percent purchased by communities,
typically through their local utility, Roache said. People who
participate can save 10 to 20 percent on their bills, aren't penalized
if they move, and there's usually a waiting list to join the project if
someone drops out.
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| The rooftop of one restaurant supply company's giant warehouse in the Bronx holds 1.5 megawatts of solar panels. Credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images |
Groups like Solstice play an important role by building
communities of solar power users. The company reaches potential
customers by canvassing door-to-door, building relationships with
faith-based organizations, community centers, and environmental groups,
and teaching energy literacy, Roache said. So far, it has generated 23
megawatts of solar demand by connecting customers to solar projects in
three states and Washington, D.C.
NYCHA's first phase will
install up to 7 megawatts of community solar on the roofs and parking
lot canopies in 14 public housing developments, enough to power up to
1,600 homes. The companies chosen will pay NYCHA to rent the rooftop
space, and those companies will deliver solar power to customers through
Con Edison.
In
order to create greater access for low-income customers, there have to
be high-profile programs―like the public housing solar project in New
York―that bring in investment and create a market, said Sean Gallagher,
vice president of state affairs at Solar Energy Industries Association.
Other
public housing authorities around the country are also exploring
community solar, but with different approaches. Among them:
- Denver's housing authority
plans to have its own community solar garden ready for operation by the
end of the year on 74 acres at a solar test facility in Aurora. The
project is expected to power up to 700 public housing units and
low-income homes, while cutting energy bills by about 20 percent, offsetting over 54,000 tons of carbon emissions, and providing job training.
- St. Paul, Minnesota's public housing agency
launched community solar gardens early this year outside of the Twin
Cities to meet the electricity needs of 10 of its public housing
high-rises. The solar gardens are expected to save the housing agency
$130,000 a year.
- Those and other projects contribute to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Renew300 Initiative, which aims to install 300 megawatts of solar on federally assisted housing by 2020.
Not all regions and utilities are as open to community solar, however, Gallagher said. Many utilities have net metering limits
for the size of solar projects or don't allow third-party purchasing
agreements, and electricity rates vary by state and utility company.
New York's community solar market hit a bump in September,
when the New York Public Service Commission approved a plan to replace
net metering with a complex metric for large-scale community solar
projects. Solar advocates say it may undercut the community solar market
by allowing utilities to decide the value of proposals.
"It's the tricky part of what New York is trying to hit―can
you construct a compensation mechanism that's rational, fair, and gives
customer some opportunity to save some money on their bills," Gallagher
said.
Community solar is still a nascent market, but that's starting to shift. There are projects in 26 states, and according to GTM Research,
410 megawatts of community solar will be installed in the U.S. in 2017,
and by 2019, there will be some 500 megawatts installed each year.
In projects involving public housing, cities are aiming for more than just cheap, clean power―they
see benefits in job creation and training, too. In New York, 30 percent
of the hires for the NYCHA project have to be NYCHA residents.
Miguel
Rodriguez, who grew up in the Lillian Wald Houses, a public housing
project on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, was used to frequent
blackouts, when the complex would suddenly lose power. After Hurricane
Sandy flooded the neighborhood, Green City Force came in to help with
restoration efforts. Rodriguez enrolled in the program and became
interested in solar. After getting certified and working as an
installer, Rodriguez, who is now 24, got involved with the NYCHA
project.
"It
would be huge," he said. "People would have a reason to get together
for something positive in the neighborhood, and the social value of the
neighborhood would go up."
Now
finishing up his associate's degree in New York, Rodriguez is already
thinking about how to use the skills he's learned to build community
solar projects outside the U.S. "My family is from the Dominican
Republic, and there's shortages and energy problems," he said. "I'm
thinking about learning more and then going in my own backyard."
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