Watt’s the Deal… with opening new community solar markets in the United States?
While community solar is still a major segment within the industry and source of revenue for many, community solar developers in 2026 will need to look past the traditional third-party subscription model to open up new pathways for DG solar and storage to be deployed onto the grid.
From what I've seen over the years, there are three main challenges with the traditional third-party community solar model:
Many states across the country lack the policy, enabling community solar. The traditional approach of lobbying the state legislature to pass a bill, then have that bill properly implemented by the state utility commission into a program that's financeable and scalable has become scarce and challenging.
Incumbent utilities often push back on the third-party model, as they see subscription acquisition and management as a threat to their business. Offering their customer a cheaper alternative flies right in the face of the utilities' agenda with that customer.
The third-party model requires a third party to acquire and manage said customers from the incumbent utilities, and there are costs associated with that process. While community solar does provide discounts to the subscribers, the third-party model construct does have additional costs.
Despite these three challenges, experienced community solar developers have a slate of alternative market pathways to pursue, reduce our costs, and maintain local solar growth.
They're our partners and always have been. So, we're happy to support more utility-led community solar programs. With this model, developers build the assets and let the utilities enroll the customers. Consumers still save, subscriber acquisition and management costs are substantially lower or removed, and the rate payers benefit from transmission and distribution deferrals or cost savings. It’s a triple win-win for everyone.
Speaking of business partners, community solar developers can also increase our partnerships with corporations, universities, and municipalities. Utility sanctioned green tariff and community choice aggregation programs allow solar and storage developers to directly reduce a city or business' electricity costs.
Having a small handful of off-takers keeps subscriber management simple and inexpensive. Green tariffs can especially resonate with data center hyperscalers who are under political pressure to BYOP— bring your own power. For them, solar plus storage is the fastest and least expensive answer for their ever-increasing energy demands.
What about low-to-medium-income or LMI programs? Federal community solar grants may be gone, but state-level incentives for LMI households are still here. With electricity rates rising, legislatures can support jobs and their frustrated LMI constituents by maintaining and expanding access to community solar and its bill savings. That's another win-win.
Finally, community solar developers can embrace being a local power provider for municipalities, utility cooperatives, tribal utilities, and even participating in the broader wholesale power market. I know that's not traditional community solar, but distributed front-of-the-meter solar and storage projects still support locally generated power, provide grid reliability and resiliency benefits, increased tax revenues, and local jobs—all without subscriber management overhead.
The traditional community solar subscription model isn't gone, but like everything, it's changing.
And that's Watt's the Deal!
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