WASHINGTON — With community solar recently surpassing 7 GW of installed capacity nationally, major American household brands are investing in community solar and other distributed solar projects to help fulfill their clean energy goals while bringing additional benefits to the communities they serve.
Microsoft, Google, Walmart, Starbucks, Rivian, Wendy’s, and T-Mobile are just a few of the Fortune 500 companies that have signed agreements with community solar developers to invest in projects across the country. Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia have policies in place that permit third-party, competitive community solar development, while multiple states are advancing legislation to enable new programs.
As these large corporations expand their operations and look to meet increasingly ambitious clean energy goals, they are betting on distributed energy projects, like community solar. That’s because smaller projects located on the distribution side of the energy grid can be brought online more quickly and deliver innovative environmental and social benefits to their surrounding communities.
Utility-scale projects play an important role in decarbonizing the grid, but large-scale projects are becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to build and interconnect. Smaller-scale, distributed projects can be brought online in one to two years and face less obstacles. These projects can also have a customer component that provides direct bills savings to households and small businesses, allowing companies to tell a broader impact story. Community solar projects also provide companies with Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to help companies meet their compliance targets.
“An economy fueled by clean, distributed energy can do more than provide power at low cost; it drives growth and success in communities across the nation. This [collaboration] helps to build more inclusive, local economic growth across 100 communities while addressing the sustainability needs and opportunities within those communities,” said Adrian Anderson, GM, Renewables, Carbon Free Energy, CDR, Microsoft in its announcement with Pivot Energy.
Community solar refers to local solar facilities shared by multiple subscribing customers who receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced. It provides homeowners, renters, and small businesses, particularly those low-to-moderate income customers who cannot afford a rooftop solar system, equal access to the economic and environmental benefits of solar energy generation regardless of the physical attributes or ownership of their home or business.
The following agreements — to highlight just a few — will produce billions of kilowatt hours of clean electricity, power more than 100,000 households and businesses, and save customers millions of dollars on their bills, annually:
- Microsoft and Pivot Energy announced a five-year partnership to develop up to 500 megawatts (MW) of community-scale solar projects, which will produce more than 1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually, starting in 2025.
- Walmart extended and expanded upon its 2021 agreement with Nexamp in March, to create 26 community solar projects across 6 states that will produce enough electricity to support community solar subscriptions for ~13,000 residential households in the U.S. annually and enable approximately $8 million in annual bill savings.
- In July, Starbucks and Nexamp agreed to 40 MW of community solar projects in Illinois in which Starbucks will receive a portion of the renewable energy credits, with the remaining capacity of each project being allocated to over 1,100 residents and small businesses throughout the area.
- In May, Rivian and Pivot Energy agreed to partner on community solar projects in Illinois, in which each MWac purchased also includes a $5,000 donation to locally sited community development organizations.
- The Wendy’s Company partnered with Ampion to help over 200 of its restaurants across New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois enroll in approximately 27.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean energy through community solar and RECs.
- In 2022, T-Mobile and Nexamp agreed to partner on more than 50 MW of community solar across the Northeast, resulting in the offsetting of almost 85% of T-Mobile’s electricity usage in the agreed-upon territory.
“We are seeing this shift directly through our Green-e Energy certification program. Large buyers are increasingly prioritizing renewable energy procurements from smaller-scale distributed generation facilities, which provide positive local impacts,” said Jennifer Martin, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Resource Solutions (CRS). “CRS believes strongly that community solar and smaller-scale distributed energy not only strengthen the integrity and resiliency of the electrical grid but offer local benefits that can increase renewable access and equity—important priorities for a clean-energy transition that benefits everyone.”
“Community solar gives companies, both large and small, the versatility to structure their participation in innovative ways to meet their business needs,” said Jeff Cramer, CEO of the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA). “While mom and pop stores are an important contingent of community solar subscribers, we’re now seeing some of the world’s largest corporations invest in community solar and other distributed generation projects — driving local clean energy and enabling much needed bill savings to communities most in need. The buy-in to community solar is now vast and varied, coming from the Department of Energy, Fortune 500 companies, and state legislatures across the country.”
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The Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA) is a national trade association representing over 125 community solar developers, businesses, and nonprofits. Together, we are building the electric grid of the future where every customer has the freedom to support the generation of clean, local solar energy to power their lives. Through legislative and regulatory advocacy, and the support of a diverse coalition — including advocates for competition, clean energy, ratepayers, landowners, farmers, and environmental justice — we enable policies that unlock the potential of distributed energy resources, starting with community solar. For more information, visit https://www.communitysolaraccess.org and follow the group on Twitter (X), LinkedIn, and YouTube.