RMI report shows path for a 30-GW community solar market by 2020

Community solar project in Iowa, courtesy of SunLink.

While recent CSS market growth has exceeded that of both behind-the-meter solar like rooftop photovoltaic systems and that of utility-scale solar between 2015 and 2017, barriers surrounding cost, access and demand continue to drag on the CSS sector’s overall growth. The Progress and Potential for Community-Scale Solar report offers new approaches to help drive additional development and buyer adoption of this clean, reliable, locally sourced resource.

The report relays data and insights from RMI’s work supporting co-op solar procurement in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, and focuses particularly on the CSS opportunity for rural electric cooperatives. It follows RMI’s research highlighting levers to reduce CSS costs by 40 percent and enable a 30-GW community scale-solar market—the equivalent of about 50 average-sized coal plants—by 2020.

How do we get there?

RMI believes the CSS segment sits in an economic sweet spot in the market and represents an economic opportunity of as much as $30 billion. Community-scale systems are large enough to access low costs through economies of scale and small enough to efficiently interconnect into distribution systems. Via these solar arrays — between 0.5 megawatt (MW) and 5 MW per installation, interconnected to distribution networks and sited directly within the neighborhoods they serve —cooperatives can leverage local connections to facilitate the development process, further reducing costs.

“In demonstrating the ability to already today deliver clean energy at or below 5 cents per kilowatt-hour on the distribution grid, CSS can be the ‘killer app’ for cooperatives, supplying a cost-competitive, locally sourced, clean energy resource that also provides resilience benefits to their members,” Thomas Koch Blank, a principal at RMI, said. “Seizing on the additional cost-reduction pathways we identify will help ensure buyers access to the best CSS offerings and their range of benefits.”

Here’s a plan to cut solar costs to offset impact of new tariffs on panel prices

RMI in December announced the start of construction on a new 3 MW solar project in New Mexico that will sell its output below 4.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, a price RMI believes is the lowest reported contract for distributed photovoltaic solar energy in the U.S. RMI provided project analysis and supported the competitive procurement process for Otero County Electric Cooperative, Inc.

RMI is working with communities, utilities, and solar developers to build a more transparent, standardized approach to help expand market access for community-scale solar installations. The organization also is continually expanding its network to both raise awareness of the benefits of this technology, and simplify the process to help stakeholders determine how CSS can help lower electricity costs and bring more clean energy onto the grid.

— Solar Builder magazine

[source: https://solarbuildermag.com/news/community-solar-market-cost-reduction/]