Roughly half of households and businesses cannot install solar: they rent, occupy shaded or shared roofs, or lack suitable structures. Community solar dissolves that barrier by decoupling participation from property, allocating the output of a single optimally sited array across many subscribers.
How allocation works
A central array, typically 1 to 5 megawatts, is built on a high-irradiance site. Its generation is metered and apportioned to subscribers as virtual net-metering (VNM) credits applied directly to their utility bills, in proportion to their subscribed share. Subscribers see a credit that exceeds their subscription cost, netting 5 to 15 percent savings.
Because the array is centrally sited and maintained, it achieves higher capacity factors and lower per-watt operating costs than fragmented rooftop systems, improving both subscriber economics and project IRR.
Subscription models and administration
We structure participation as either a subscription, where members pay for allocated capacity month to month, or as ownership of panels within the array. Subscriber management, credit reconciliation against utility statements, and churn handling are administered through a billing platform that scales to a thousand or more participants per project.
- Site origination, interconnection, and array development
- Virtual net-metering credit allocation and reconciliation
- Subscriber onboarding, billing, and churn management
- Low-to-moderate-income inclusion and carve-out compliance
- Project IRR modeling and offtake structuring
Equity and project economics
Many community solar frameworks mandate or incentivize low-to-moderate-income participation, broadening clean-energy access beyond homeowners with capital. We structure projects to meet these carve-outs while preserving financeability, balancing inclusion requirements against the offtake certainty lenders demand.
For developers and hosts, community solar converts an underutilized parcel or rooftop into a 25-year revenue asset underpinned by a diversified subscriber base. That diversification reduces offtake risk relative to a single large customer, supporting more favorable debt terms and a more resilient cash flow over the asset's operating life.