Project Sunlight


Overview

Low-income (LI) households living in multifamily affordable housing (MFAH) face many barriers to accessing affordable onsite or community solar. These include the property owners’ lack of resources and know-how, the split-incentive issue, the financial and administrative burden of subscribing each individual tenant, and utility hindrance to solar. Existing 'successful' programs heavily subsidize solar but are unsustainable. Project Sunlight is developing a sustainable, scalable financing model to address these hurdles.

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Project Sunlight was inspired by the idea that government aid programs and traditional philanthropy will never be sufficient to help the millions of people caught in the dark cycle of poverty. We designed an innovative way to address the issue—and give safe, healthy, and affordable homes to people caught in the cycle. The project developed, coordinated, and piloted a new approach that partnered with local utilities, MFAH owners, investors, and other stakeholders, to create a shared solar model that can aggregate multifamily properties into one solar project for the utility to own and manage.
Project Sunlight launched in 2019 as a partnership between ICAST and the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) and is funded by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) in order to better understand current best practices and opportunities to scale low-income (LI) community solar (CS) program opportunities nationally. As part of Project Sunlight, SEPA surveyed utilities on their current practices and future plans and discussed regulatory drivers and considerations.


Goals


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To provide access to solar PV to LI residents living in multifamily affordable housing.

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To develop a cost-effective, innovative approach to scale these solar projects.

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To create a repeatable project model in partnership with local utilities and national investors.



Who We Serve


Project Sunlight focuses on populations who get overlooked and don’t have the means to create safe and secure lives for themselves, including: 


□ Low-Income Families


□ Fixed-Income Seniors


□ Fixed-Income Disabled Individuals 


□ Underserved Veterans


□ Low-to-Moderate-Income Workers at Schools, Nonprofits, and Public Service Facilities


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Benefits


To Multifamily Housing Partners:


□Savings on utility bills for both commercial meters and tenants.


□Recognition on a National level as a partner to this US DOE program during conferences, webinars, publications, case studies, and other media exposure.


□Green marketability of your property plus lower utility costs to potential tenants.


To Utility Partners:


□Consulting expertise (MFAH, Regulatory, Legal, and Financial) and access to U.S. Department of Energy funding for project development by ICAST, at no cost to the utility.


□Help your low-income and vulnerable community, with no cross subsidy.


□Program structure where savings goes to reduce bills for eligible participants or for energy efficiency upgrades (Demand Side Management Programs).


□Pilot a solar PV (and energy storage) project for clean energy and peak load management.


□Recognition on a National level as partner to this US DOE program during conferences, webinars, publications, case studies, and other media exposure.


To Investors:


□Open large, untapped investment market: solar for multifamily affordable housing.


□Bankable investment as a utility backed program.


□Community Social Responsibility opportunity.


□Recognition on a National level as partner to this US DOE program during conferences, webinars, publications, case studies, and other media exposure.

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For more information, view the ICAST and SEPA Project Sunlight Fact Sheet HERE.