Full Title: DERiving Community Economic Development through Distributed Solar
Author(s): Sachiko Graber
Publisher(s): Cooperative Energy Futures
Publication Date: November 22, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Across the U.S., distributed solar offers substantial opportunity for community and community-led economic development. While utility-scale solar is booming, stakeholders are also eager to identify new mechanisms to support and scale smaller community-led projects and the accompanying community-led economic opportunities they can offer. However, support is needed for community-based solar developers (e.g., small developers who have fewer than 20 staff, are based in the same community where a project will be developed and have multiple mechanisms in place to enable the
community to inform, shape, and/or own the project) to best support their communities.
This report explores how distributed solar stakeholders can plan and align economic development with existing community priorities while advancing new solar projects. Because the amount of local community influence drives community economic development, the authors note the need for investment in community ownership models, which are scarce today. This report seeks to outline the current barriers to community-led economic development through distributed solar, best practices for implementation, and recommendations for sector stakeholders.