The Community Solar Clearinghouse Solution Program was selected as a Meaningful Benefit Category Special Recognition winner for Innovation for the Sunny Awards for Equitable Community Solar, an initiative of the National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP).
The NCSP, a program of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), supports a coalition of stakeholders working to expand access to affordable community solar to every U.S. household and enable communities to realize meaningful benefits, such as greater household savings, low- to moderate-income (LMI) household access, increased resilience, community ownership, and equitable workforce development. NCSP is working toward a 2025 target to enable community solar to power the equivalent of 5 million households and generate a cumulative $1 billion in energy bill savings.
The Sunny Awards were launched in 2022 to recognize community solar projects and programs that employ best practices to increase equitable access to the meaningful benefits of community solar for subscribers and their communities. Meaningful benefits are key outcomes of community solar development identified by the NCSP. These community solar benefits bring positive impacts to the households, organizations, and the surrounding communities where the projects are developed and operate.
Project Overview
- Project Name: Community Solar Clearinghouse Solution Program
- Location: Chicago, IL
- Project Size: 11,600 MW
- Project Subscribers: 1,400 households
- Year Energized: 2020
- Lead Organization: Metropolitan Mayors Caucus
- Partner Organizations: MC Squared Energy Services LLC, The Power Bureau, North Shore Electric Aggregation Consortium
- Business Model: Third party
- State or Utility Program Leveraged: Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act, 2021 Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs Act
- Bill Savings: 20% net savings
- LMI Access: N/A
Meaningful Benefits Best Practices
The Community Solar Clearinghouse Solution Program (CS² Program) initiative was started by the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus in 2018 to connect municipalities in northeast Illinois with emerging community solar projects. The program pools municipal subscribers and matches them with local community solar supply opportunities, with the aim of extending community solar benefits to residents and reducing household energy burden, while achieving clean energy, decarbonization, and resilience goals.
In August 2020, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus launched the CS² Residential Program to empower municipalities to connect their residents to community solar subscriptions with a guaranteed 20% net savings program to the subscribers. The success of the program is attributed to authentic community engagement at many levels, including elected officials, municipal staff, citizen commissioners, and sustainability commissions from diverse municipalities. To ensure community engagement, the Caucus first set broad goals through its Greenest Region Compact, which articulates that participants must “Collaborate to provide access to community solar” as a strategy to achieve the goal, “Advance renewable energy”. At the time of publication, this goal was formally endorsed by 156 diverse municipalities. The Caucus’ Climate Action Plan for the Chicago Region further articulates that participants should, “Engage the community to choose clean energy …through community solar” as a strategy to achieve the goal “Decarbonize energy sources.” One-hundred seventy-five organizations including 54 municipalities contributed to the development of that plan. It is also formally endorsed by 34 local governments.
To design the CS² Residential Program, the Caucus convened its Environment Committee and Energy Subcommittee in December 2020. Elected officials, municipal staff, as well as citizen commissioners from 54 communities throughout the 7-county metropolitan region participated in this planning discussion. The Committee expressed strong interest in community solar and offered their unique strengths to help educate their residents and protect them from confusing marketing messages about community solar. Municipalities agreed to consider and vet subscription offers on behalf of their residents, village boards and city councils agreed to pass transparent municipal resolutions to participate in CS², and all participants agreed to comply with marketing regulations prescribed by the Illinois Power Agency.
With this community input and support in place, the CS² program team created a 10-step process and assembled resources to engage municipal leaders and support community engagement at the local level. Most municipalities further involve their volunteer citizen sustainability commissions to evaluate and promote CS². The Caucus and the Power Bureau engage with these commissions help bring the benefits of CS² to interested communities. Municipalities use their constituent engagement tools including public meetings, mailings, municipal website and social media to educate residents about CS².
Learn more about the Community Solar Clearinghouse Solution Program and contact Cheryl Scott at cscott@mayorscaucus.org with any questions.