April 30, 2018

Expanding Solar Access: Pathways for Multifamily Housing

This guide outlines potential paths to enable greater solar access for renters and multifamily residents, and low- to moderate-income communities.

This guide outlines two potential paths to enable greater solar access for renters and multifamily residents, and low- to moderate-income communities:

(1) on-site shared solar, via an arrangement that allows energy generation credits from a single solar system to be shared virtually among multiple tenant accounts; and (2) off-site/remote shared solar, which allows multiple dispersed customers to share the economic benefits of a single renewable energy system and receive credits on their utility bills for the electricity generated by that common system.

Developed in partnership with the Center for Sustainable Energy, highlights about the necessary elements, steps and key stakeholders for each option are featured.

This guide and surrounding work is connected to a related effort in California to increase uptake of solar on multifamily housing using the existing Virtual Net Metering Tariff, which has been available for years in the country’s leading solar market but has been vastly underutilized.