EERE Success Story—Electric Cooperatives Channel Solar Resources to Rural American Communities

The nation’s 900 electric cooperatives (co-ops) power the homes of more than 42 million Americans across 47 states. As more Americans in major cities and suburbs are powering their homes and businesses with solar electricity, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) is spearheading a national initiative to give rural communities the same options—by working with co-ops to make going solar cheaper, faster, and easier.

As a part of its SunShot Initiative award, Solar Utility Networks: Replicable Innovations In Solar Energy (SUNRISE), NRECA is partnering with 17 co-ops, Power Secure, the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC), and Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange to develop, test, and deploy the “PV System Toolkit,” a ready-to-use  set of standard engineering designs, financing models, templates, tools, and plans. This suite of materials and best practices is designed to not only reduce solar adoption costs but also help co-ops across the country navigate the many ways in which they can integrate solar into their asset portfolios. Through this project, NRECA is also supporting the deployment of more than 23 megawatts (MW) of utility-scale PV in 15 states while providing hundreds of rural communities with proven solutions to leverage the benefits of cost-competitive and reliable solar electricity generation. 

A few of the first co-ops to work with NRECA to deploy solar projects that meet and serve the needs of their members are Great River Energy, a generation and transmission co-op in Minnesota; CoServ Electric, the second largest co-op in Texas; and Eau Claire Energy Co-op in Wisconsin. CoServ installed a 2-MW system on a 16-acre site in Krugerville as a community solar solution designed to make solar energy affordable to all of its members. In this setup, members can purchase kilowatt-hour (kWh) blocks of power from the site for 12.5¢ per kWh, which will remain constant for the life of the project. Similarly, Eau Claire Energy Co-op offers its members shares in an 872-kW off-site shared solar system, in order to benefit directly from the electricity that their portion of the system produces over a period of 20 years. Members of the Eau Claire Energy Co-op are able to purchase solar panels at cost, securing rates as low as $2.10 per watt for the next two decades. 

Because electric co-ops serve large geographic areas and deliver electricity to more than 12% of all electricity customers in the U.S., NRECA’s work is critical to the widespread deployment of solar energy. Their work is not only making it easier for electric co-ops to deploy solar, but their efforts are helping to make solar electricity available to millions of Americans for the very first time. 

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) success stories highlight the positive impact of its work with businesses, industry partners, universities, research labs, and other entities.