Why Pennsylvania’s efforts to legalize community solar might make a breakthrough

For nearly a decade, Republicans and Democrats in Pennsylvania have made legislative efforts to bring community solar to the Keystone State.

Last year a bill in support of the Community Solar Act made it through the House for the first time, but then stalled in the Senate. This year, HB 504, a revised bill is now at the same point where it stalled last year, so the question is whether it will stay in limbo or progress.

(Read: Community solar bill passes Pennsylvania House after years of stalemate)

Vote Solar’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Director Elowyn Corby spoke with pv magazine USA about why their efforts to pass the Community Energy Bill are suddenly gaining momentum. Corby also discussed the legislation’s bipartisan legacy, and why Vote Solar and the coalition Our Solar PA ultimately decided to feel comfortable with an amendment to add renewable natural gas to community solar.

Community solar enables people and businesses to participate in clean energy regardless of whether they are homeowners or rent, or able to put solar panels on their roof. The consumer subscribes to a portion of the electricity generated by a local community solar installation, receiving credits on their utility bills for the electricity produced by the facility. Some programs reserve a portion for low- or moderate-income households.

Our Solar PA’s member-submitted photos in its “visualizing community solar for PA” movement.
*Image: Our Solar PA*

Everyone is eligible for community solar, Corby said. “It’s just a question of program capacity,” she said.

At its heart, community solar empowers those who want a carbon-free future by giving them the choice to use renewable energy.

Unlike the bills they previously introduced in Pennsylvania or community solar in other states, this year’s bill incorporates renewable natural gas, changing the program from “community solar” to “community energy.”

The Our Solar PA coalition had many conversations about the gas inclusion, Corby said, and after many talks, “we, by consensus, decided that we were okay with the inclusion.”

“We had to decide how to grapple with it,” she said, but ultimately the coalition felt comfortable continuing to advocate for the bill, because it does not require drilling or fracking. Instead, the amended version requires renewable natural gas to be derived by capturing emissions from waste.

Vote Solar would have drawn a hard line at fracking, but in this case, the natural gas is renewable, Corby said. “This is capturing fugitive emissions from farm waste, food waste, et cetera.”

Pennsylvania’s lawmakers have been trying to pass a community solar bill for roughly a decade. After years of attempts, the legislation made it further than it ever had before last year when it passed the House. Whether the legislation makes it through this year is to be determined.

As Pennsylvania enters another budget trading season, Corby said they hope to make enough noise about community solar’s benefits “so that not just Democrats, but Republicans as well, go into the conversations with an interest and a commitment to coming home at the end of the budget season with community solar passed and at the governor’s desk.”

The bill’s bipartisan legacy is going to be helpful in getting it over the finish line, Corby said. “We just need to remind all the legislators that this has a bipartisan history, and there’ s a lot of reasons why it would be Republican-led,” and noted its energy-independence component.

“I talked to a Republican not too long ago who was excited about this bill because he has a lot of abandoned mine sites in his district,” she said. “Community solar can go on abandoned mine land in a way that is just really hard to do almost anything else.”

The Community Energy Act is part of Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro’s Lightning Plan, which takes the state’s “all-of-the-above” approach to modernize the state’s energy plan. Its inclusion in the governor’s Lightning Plan is a double-edged sword, to maintaining its support in both chambers, Corby said.

“Being a Democrat, that it makes it hard to argue that it’s conservative-led,” she said, “but the fact that it’s included in the plan does add momentum.”

While most of the community solar bills introduced over the past years were made in honest efforts, Corby noted, “There have also been bills that have been distractions, that have been framed as community solar, but would not result in community solar,” she said, “not at least the type of community solar we’re hoping to see.”

She said a local community solar bill is periodically introduced that “is very much utility-driven,” she said. “It doesn’t require anything other than what utilities already do.”

To Corby, the big difference this time around is the much broader community support and excitement around the idea of community solar.

This didn’t happen by chance, however.

The previous conversations on community solar were so technical and industry-driven, and not focused on community benefits, she said. They decided to take a step back and have conversations with communities across the state and “just completely level set and say, ‘What would you like to see from community solar? What is your vision for how this could work for your communities and that process?’.”

There are priorities that everyone got behind, she said, such as guaranteed savings. Guaranteed savings works exactly as it sounds: participants in community solar are guaranteed to save money.

Another benefit, Corby said, is that community solar projects don’t have to deal with PJM, the regional grid operator, which has hundreds of gigawatts in renewable energy projects awaiting interconnection.

“One of the nice things about community solar is it connects to the distribution grid, rather than the transmission grid, Corby said. “It doesn’t have to do with PJM at all, so it can come online faster,” she said.

Electric rates are going up because there isn’t enough energy to meet rising demand, she said. “Community solar creates a pressure release valve, which is really helpful for ratepayers everywhere.”

Corby said she, and many others, are trying to shout the benefits of community solar from the rooftops.

“We know that bringing more local clean energy online helps ratepayers in a variety of ways,” she said, “and I’m not even talking about the environmental or health benefits. I’m just talking about energy bills.”

Read about other solar-related bills state lawmakers are debating this legislative session here.

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