On Wednesday, the New York Finger Lakes region villages of Brockport and Lima formally launched what is being hailed as the first opt-out community choice solar program in the United States. The program is part of an initiative known as the Finger Lakes Community Choice program developed by Joule Community Power, an energy provider that specializes in community choice aggregation: i.e. energy service agreements made at a more localized level by aggregating service for small municipalities.
The opt-out solar offering has been made available to more than 3,800 households and small businesses in the two villages, and Joule says it will reduce residents’ electricity bills by up to 10 percent for the next 25 years.
Brockport and Lima have partnered with six local community solar farms, which are expected to generate a combined 28 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually. As each farm begins to generate power, residents subscribed to that farm will start receiving savings. The solar farms are expected to begin operation in October 2021—all residents will be covered by Spring 2022.
All eligible residents are automatically enrolled in the program without having to sign a contract, undergo a credit screen, or have solar panels installed on their homes. Should a resident wish to disenroll (opt-out) from the program, they are free to do so at any time with no penalty.
Bringing solar to the LMI segment
Joule says this structure enables municipal leaders to expand access to community solar benefits to all their constituents, including the low- to moderate-income (LMI) residents who have historically been unable to benefit from traditional opt-in community solar or community choice electric supply programs due to state regulation and socioeconomic barriers. Of the 3,800 eligible customers in the Finger Lakes Community Choice opt-out solar program, more than 200 are low-income households and approximately 300 are moderate-income. Going forward, LMI residents will continue to be first in line to receiving solar credits within a municipality.
In addition to the opt-out community choice solar program, Finger Lakes Community Choice also launched a community choice electric supply program, which will provide residents and businesses in Brockport and Lima with 100 percent renewable energy for the next two years, powered by New York State run-of-river hydropower. As with community solar, customers can opt out or leave the electricity supply program at any time with no penalty.
Together, the opt-out community choice solar and electric supply programs will provide residents with an estimated 48 million kWh of renewable energy, avoiding 34,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. These types of locally led community choice energy programs will be an important pillar in achieving New York’s mandate to reach 70 percent renewables by 2030, with 35 percent of the benefits targeting LMI residents.
“Our mission always has been and continues to rest on empowering municipalities to have a say in the origin of their energy supply. This groundbreaking program will benefit nearly every resident in Brockport and Lima,” said Joule Assets CEO Jessica Stromback.
“Unfortunately, a pending regulatory proposal, ‘Expanded Solar for All,’ puts the future of similar projects in jeopardy. If passed in the fall, the proposal would grant [major listed utility] National Grid a de-facto monopoly over the community solar market, effectively diminishing the power of local municipalities to drive renewable energy growth from the ground up,” Stromback added.
While the pending proposal, submitted jointly by NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Agency) and National Grid, aims to expand community solar access to LMI residents enrolled in HEAP, it excludes approximately 65 percent of LMI New Yorkers who aren’t enrolled in the program. Opt-out community choice solar programs have the potential to benefit a much larger number of LMI residents.
The public comment period for the E-SFA proposal closed on August 23 with 277 responses submitted in opposition from a wide range of stakeholders, including CCA municipalities, solar developers, and concerned citizens, representing 98 percent of the total feedback. The Public Service Commission is expected to vote on the proposal later this fall.
“Community choice aggregation has long been our goal and through this partnership with Joule, we finally have a program that will benefit our residents with guaranteed savings and help New York reach its clean energy goals,” added Lima Deputy Mayor John Wadach. “The fact that our residents will be able to reap both financial and environmental benefits without having to take any action makes our efforts worthwhile. We hope that other municipalities will also have their voices heard and can offer similar programs to benefit their residents.”
“Our constituents have experienced first-hand the financial benefits that come with community choice aggregation, and we’ve eagerly awaited the opportunity to participate in an opt-out community choice solar program that would benefit a large portion of our residents,” said Brockport Mayor Margaret Blackman. “Community solar is the future of clean energy and it’s critical that municipalities be heavily involved in the process of serving their residents to make community solar possible.”
Joule is the sole program administrator with approval from New York State to integrate community solar and electric supply in a community choice offering. As Joule expands its offering throughout New York State, it says it is looking to add 250 MW of community distributed generation solar capacity in utility zones north of Westchester County. Of this, 80 percent is being contracted specifically to serve LMI residents within participating municipalities.
In July of this year, the State of New York Public Service Commission (PSC) ruled that Joule Assets can indeed offer Community Distributed Generation (CDG) on an opt-out basis as part of an integrated program that includes a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) electricity supply product. To date, five municipalities in three New York utility service territories already have been approved by the Department of Public Service to offer opt-out community solar, including the two Finger Lakes area projects that launched on Tuesday.
