The EPA is awarding $7 billion for solar initiatives in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
The EPA’s Solar for All grants will help catalyze solar energy development in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
Grants are being awarded to states, municipalities, Tribal governments, and some nonprofits for initiatives that use solar energy generation to lower electricity costs for disadvantaged households. It’s one of the many clean energy financial assistance programs created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Quick Frames
We, and the decision-makers we want to persuade, are each approaching the climate crisis through different lenses. Facts are facts, but it can be helpful to frame them differently to match those individual lenses. Here are some common frames that speak to different perspectives:
💡 RAPID DECARBONIZATION: Building out distributed solar programs will help shift a greater share of U.S. electricity generation to zero-emissions sources and can help states meet their 100% clean power goals.
✊ EQUITY AND JUSTICE: Disadvantaged households bear 3x the energy burden as higher income households on average, and energy burdens are often much higher for Black and Hispanic households. Distributed solar offers relief from the high cost of electricity.
💰 COST SAVINGS: Solar for All requires awarded solar projects to deliver a minimum 20% reduction in annual electricity costs for every household covered.
💼 JOB CREATION: New solar projects and upgrades are job creators. Solar for All grants can be used for workforce development and boosting minority- and women-owned businesses, and awarded project developers must pay a prevailing wage.
♥️ HUMAN HEALTH: The low-income and disadvantaged communities served by Solar for All have often suffered disproportionately from the harmful effects of fossil power generation. Many of them are in physical proximity to fossil gas “peaker plants” that pollute the surrounding environment. The more fossil fuel generation we can displace by adding solar to the grid, the more we can reduce health inequity caused by fossil fuels.
Distributed low-income solar: science-backed, equitable climate solutions
Distributed solar refers to solar energy generated at or near where it will be used. Distributed solar installations are smaller than a typical grid-scale solar farm, but they are usually connected to the grid to maximize efficiency and reliability. Two common types of distributed solar are community solar and residential rooftop solar. Community solar refers to a project with lots of solar panels grouped together; it allows subscribers to lease or own shares of a local solar photovoltaic (PV) array and then receive compensation for the power generated by that share through credits on their electricity bill. Since the array is offsite and benefits anyone who buys or leases a share, this type of arrangement is accessible to both renters and homeowners alike. Residential rooftop solar refers to solar panels on individual rooftops; it allows each household to produce all or most of their typical electricity needs on-site.
With either type, distributed solar is a zero-emissions energy source that reduces electricity costs for consumers. They’re an effective way to extend the benefits of increasingly cheap clean energy to low-income (LI) and disadvantaged communities. Disadvantaged communities is a term used to describe communities that have been historically underserved and marginalized, while low-income communities are typically defined as having a median household income that is below 80% of the statewide median household income.
Community solar model: graphic from Solar United Neighbors
How will Solar for All deliver solar power to communities that need it most?
Up to 60 grants will be awarded to proposed solar initiatives. To ensure that Solar for All successfully launches or upgrades low-income solar projects, the EPA is requiring that all proposals allocate 75% of their grant award to solar projects, while the remaining 25% of the funds can be allocated toward everything else: permitting costs, workforce development, consumer marketing, etc.
The program is also part of the Biden administration’s Justice40 initiative, meaning at least 40% of the program’s benefits must reach low-income and disadvantaged communities. To help achieve that 40% standard, Solar for All grants will be awarded to initiatives that benefit low-income and disadvantaged communities by providing distributed solar. The projects don’t all need to start from scratch; upgrades to existing solar projects and energy storage are also eligible.
Under Solar for All, the EPA will grant up to 60 awards (with five reserved for Tribal governments), with certain award amounts reserved for small, medium, and large programs. States can apply independently or as a bloc, but the EPA is imposing a limit of 10 multi-state awards. Municipalities can apply individually or as a coalition. The application deadline is October 12, 2023.
Solar for All funding comes from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion fund created by the Inflation Reduction Act to mobilize capital for clean energy projects. Rather than finance individual energy projects, GGRF programs award federal grants to large entities—like states, cities, and green banks—that can then distribute the funds to a host of eligible initiatives.
The program has been praised for its commitment to ensuring that benefits trickle down to households. The EPA’s program guidance describes five categories for which proposed solar projects must demonstrate clear benefits:
Cost savings of 20%, at minimum, to all households served by the project
Equitable access to solar generation
Electricity resilience against outages
Shared ownership and distributed economic benefits
Workforce development and prevailing wage jobs
Quick Facts: Benefits of Distributed Solar
-
Distributed solar typically save participating households between 5-20% on their electricity bills. Solar for All imposes a savings minimum of 20% per household, making Solar for All projects an even better deal for consumers than ordinary solar options.
-
About 60% of the U.S. electric grid is still powered by coal and natural gas. Experts agree that as we electrify our homes and transportation, the grid system will need significant additional capacity. That’s on top of the need to replace existing coal and gas generation with clean energy.
By adding more grid-connected community and rooftop solar, we can help offset some of the increased electricity load with 100% clean, cheaper generation.
-
Disadvantaged communities are often located in areas that are isolated from safe, clean amenities due to the built environment (e.g. railroads or highways) due to historically racist city planning or “redlining.”
Their neighborhoods are often in close proximity to fossil fuel plants, particularly the fossil gas “peaker” plants located in urban areas that are switched on only during peak demand. These plants are particularly polluting because they aren’t running on an efficient schedule. The more solar power can displace the need for peaker plants in disadvantaged neighborhoods, the more we begin to chip away at the health inequities caused by peaker plants and other polluting infrastructure.
The clean energy transition is a chance to give agency back to disadvantaged communities who suffered at the hands of racist policy decisions. To that end, developers should be mindful of getting free, prior, informed consent from host communities before siting new projects. And once projects are underway, host communities should lead in the implementation process to ensure benefits are flowing to the right people.
-
In addition to redressing inequitable energy burdens, initiatives like Solar for All help address issues of “climate injustice.” Climate justice communities are those who will be disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, and they often intersect with disadvantaged and LI communities. Disproportionate vulnerability to the effects of climate change are largely due to inadequate infrastructure, housing, and healthcare.
Climate justice communities have been neglected by policy decisions in the past, and often, they’ve contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions. This is not only true of communities in the U.S., but also of pre-industrial nations that have low emissions but high climate risk.
To help quantify climate injustice, the EPA conducted a study of climate impacts along racial lines and found that Americans of color are significantly more likely than White Americans to live somewhere with an increased rate of climate change-related mortality—including 48% higher likelihood for Indigenous Americans, 43% for Latinos, 40% for Black Americans, and 23% for Asian Americans.
Shareable resources:
We’ve compiled guidebooks, FAQs, and case studies for your outreach to policymakers. Feel free to dive in for a closer look at designing effective distributed solar programs.