{"id":14571,"date":"2012-07-02T10:37:27","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T16:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=14571"},"modified":"2012-07-02T10:37:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T16:37:27","slug":"community-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/community-solar\/","title":{"rendered":"Community-Owned Solar Gardens Make Clean Energy Possible for All"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"solar<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the biggest setbacks for people looking to invest in solar is a lack of a suitable place to put the solar panels<\/a>. A solar installation both has to be in the right direction and the right angle to extract enough energy from the sun\u2019s trajectory for the system to be financially feasible.<\/p>\n

When we add up the numbers, only about 1 in 5 American households is suitable for solar<\/a>, which means that the vast majority of the population cannot contribute much in the solar movement even if they wanted to.<\/p>\n

In the last few years this has been changing: community-owned solar enables households that otherwise wouldn\u2019t be eligible for solar panels in the past to invest in, and make use of, this technology.<\/p>\n

How does community-owned solar work?<\/h3>\n

Currently, solar energy can be stored or shared in three ways. If households with solar panels generate more electricity than what they need, they have to have a place to store that electricity. In an off-grid situation<\/a>, for instance, this is done with batteries.\u00a0Net metering, on the other hand, involves sending excess electricity to the power grid, and crediting the solar array owner’s bill accordingly. A newer option, virtual net metering, allows more than one household to use the same net metering program, with each one of them receiving credit in terms of lower electricity bills as a ratio of their own share of the PV system. Virtual net metering is only available in a few US states, with others considering it.<\/p>\n

Community-owned solar, or “solar gardens<\/a>,” offers a way for households to purchase or lease a certain percentage of a collection of solar panels. A solar garden can be put on a flat piece of land or on a large rooftop in the community, enabling those 4 in 5 American households that aren\u2019t suited for residential solar panels harvest clean electricity after all.<\/p>\n

For a full overview over the solar gardens that have been introduced so far, go to Solar Garden Institute (SGI)<\/a>. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) just recently published a guide to community shared solar <\/a>for those that want to learn more about this.<\/p>\n

Image credit:<\/strong> Jeda Villa Bali<\/a> via photo pin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest setbacks for people looking to invest in solar is a lack of a suitable place to put the solar panels. In the last few years this has been changing: community-owned solar enables households that otherwise wouldn\u2019t be eligible for solar panels in the past to invest in, and make use of, this technology. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":14584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7],"tags":[5851,3423,4259,155,5852],"yoast_head":"\nCommunity Solar: Clean Energy for Everyone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Community solar models, or "solar gardens," allow homeowners to buy clean energy even if their home isn't well-sited for it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/community-solar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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