Solar Community Assistance for Local Equity

NREL offers targeted assistance to communities through the Solar Energy Innovation Network (SEIN) as Innovation at SCALE (Solar Community Assistance for Local Equity).

Innovation at SCALE applies lessons learned and adapts solutions developed through three rounds of the Solar Energy Innovation Network. SEIN is a collaborative research program that supports multistakeholder teams to research, develop, and share solutions to real-world challenges associated with distributed-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) energy adoption. SEIN projects across the U.S. have demonstrated new, effective methods and insights for bringing the benefits of solar to a wider array of communities.

Innovation at SCALE builds on the success of SEIN projects by bringing these insights to new contexts through community-focused assistance. Within Innovation at SCALE, NREL and partner organizations are offering targeted technical and analytical assistance to help communities overcome barriers to solar adoption and find their path to solar in a just and equitable way.

Participants in Innovation at SCALE will engage with subject matter experts and SEIN project leaders to identify and implement the insights and lessons from those projects that may be impactful in the participant's community.

Access a list of frequently asked questions.

What Assistance Is Provided?

The scope and type of assistance provided will be determined based on the needs of the Innovation at SCALE participant and the application of relevant SEIN outputs (see assistance topic areas below) and cannot include direct funding for capital projects or equipment purchases.

Examples of assistance include:

  • Consultation with subject matter experts on steps in the solar deployment process, from initial goal-setting to community engagement to project financing
  • Key insights from experienced SEIN partners about their project work to increase solar deployment in underserved communities
  • Analysis and contextualization of site-specific data using NREL's state-of-the-art tools
  • Memoranda for applying SEIN project outputs to the participant's context
  • Review of project strategy or program design documents
  • Other deliverables depending on the goals of the participant.

Assistance is intended to inform decisions or actions related to distributed-scale solar energy planning and development undertaken by Innovation at SCALE participants and is provided at no cost to the recipient.

Who Is Eligible?

Innovation at SCALE is open to all U.S.-based stakeholders, including but not limited to community-based organizations, local government entities, regulatory authorities, and electric utilities. Individual organizations or teams of stakeholders are eligible for support.

How To Request Assistance

Requests for assistance through SEIN Innovation at SCALE are currently open, and assistance is provided at no cost to requestors. The number of assistance opportunities is limited, so potential Innovation at SCALE participants are encouraged to submit requests as soon as possible.

Apply by June 28, 2024, to be scheduled for an intake meeting July 10–24, 2024, and receive technical and facilitation assistance in the August–October timeframe.

In requesting assistance, participants must describe how the provided assistance will:

  • Align with the participant's goals related to solar adoption
  • Relate to the outputs and insights of relevant SEIN topics
  • Specifically inform an action, decision, or decision-making process (such as a local government pursuing a solar incentive program for small businesses, or a college campus deciding whether to install a solar-plus-storage microgrid for resilience).

If the request meets the parameters of assistance outlined here, SEIN staff will follow up with the listed contact to schedule an intake interview.

Apply for Assistance

To apply for assistance through SEIN Innovation at SCALE, complete a request form by June 28, 2024.

Assistance Topic Areas

Assistance through Innovation at SCALE focuses on the following topic areas. Each topic area relates to multiple outputs and insights from SEIN projects that have been centered around innovations to equitable access to solar, commercial-scale solar, and residential solar adoption.

Prospective Innovation at SCALE participants should scan these topics for common ground with their own community's goals and barriers related to solar adoption. These topics for assistance are not mutually exclusive; an Innovation at SCALE participant may benefit by drawing from multiple topic areas depending on their community's unique circumstances.

Wealth disparity can impact the ability to invest in solar. Although the costs of solar have decreased over the years, the financial risk associated with the total cost of the system is still present, especially in economically insecure communities. Even with incentives to help with the upfront cost, small businesses or low-to-moderate income (LMI) households may not have sufficient resources, tax burden, or credit score.

SEIN Round 3 teams identified the complexity and confusion in navigating financial incentives and opportunities and then developed pathways to reduce these barriers. The team in Portland, Oregon, developed resource packages for households to better understand the upfront costs, long-term benefits, and financing options for solar and energy efficiency projects. Meanwhile, NREL researchers worked with SEIN teams to develop the Screening Tool for Equitable Adoption and Deployment of Solar (STEADy Solar). STEADy Solar helps identify specific locations where distributed-scale solar PV projects may be economical, allowing stakeholders to focus resources and deploy solar more equitably.

To encourage solar adoption in LMI communities, the legacies of public distrust toward government and energy providers must be dismantled through effective outreach and community engagement. Building trust and empowering communities with decision-making power is essential to overcoming this challenge.

SEIN teams in Tallahassee, Florida, and Portland, Oregon, developed effective community engagement strategies, including a community engagement framework and a solar ambassador program, respectively. SEIN project work in Atlanta, Georgia, also focused on engagement and potential synergies between historically Black college campuses and the surrounding communities.

Small businesses, particularly those with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) or immigrant owners, face significant challenges to accessing the benefits of solar. Lack of familiarity with solar, limited access to financing, and language barriers were all found by SEIN project teams to get in the way of solar adoption for these small businesses.

SEIN Round 3 teams engaged with small business owners to lower these barriers to solar adoption. For instance, The Twin Cities, Minnesota, project applied human-centered design to co-create effective solar programs with small business owners. The Salt Lake City, Utah, team developed a commercial solar-plus-storage framework for evaluating solar estimates and providing financial strategies for commercial buildings.

In the face of electricity outages caused by severe weather events or other emergencies, solar energy can play a valuable role in providing resilient power and helping communities withstand and recover from disasters. Underserved communities are often particularly vulnerable to economic and infrastructural damage caused by outages and disruptions.

SEIN teams in Port Arthur, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah, explored financial and deployment pathways for resilient solar-plus-battery storage projects that can deliver meaningful benefits to commercial buildings and nearby neighborhoods. Meanwhile, a SEIN team in Tampa Bay, Florida, developed a toolkit for prioritizing critical facilities to serve as resilient solar-plus-storage project sites.

Example Solar Energy Innovation Network Projects

Participants in Innovation at SCALE will be using the outputs and insights of completed SEIN projects to advance their own progress toward solar adoption. Summaries of some completed SEIN projects are listed below. Cohorts of past SEIN projects have been centered on themes of increasing equitable adoption of solar, commercial-scale solar innovations, and residential-scale solar innovations. Based on the needs of the Innovation at SCALE participant, NREL may apply insights, outputs, and lessons learned from all SEIN projects as appropriate, including those supported by past assistance efforts.

This team worked to increase the uptake of commercial solar and storage in underserved communities by engaging community and business stakeholders, hosting community listening sessions, and developing culturally relevant outreach tools and resources that address solar market barriers and economically entrenched energy injustices.
This team developed resources and pathways to address the awareness, affordability, and capital barriers to equitable commercial-scale solar as they relate to solar-plus-storage microgrids that build community wealth in underserved neighborhoods of Port Arthur, Texas.​ In addition to highlighting the most promising sites for these resilient projects, the project also supported the addition of a solar workforce training curriculum to a local job training and career placement center.
This team engaged minority-owned businesses in underserved neighborhoods to increase solar deployment. The team collaborated to apply human-centered design to understand stakeholders' lived experiences, gain insights, and challenge assumptions. The team is co-creating solutions to reduce inequities in solar adoption, increase business resilience, and build capacity and leadership to sustain ongoing community action.
This project designed an innovative urban energy resilience hub integrating microgrid technology, solar generation, and energy storage and engaged the neighboring community on the most effective resilient services for their needs. Hubs like this will help Atlanta's historically Black colleges and universities and the energy-burdened broader community become resilient and will also inform new course curricula at Atlanta University Center campuses.
The Clear Sky team developed a toolkit that provides local governments and community partners with prompts and resources for assessing the siting prioritization and feasibility of solar-plus-storage for disaster resilience purposes. The Clear Sky Toolkit adds to this emerging area of research and practice by addressing the need for a standardized approach to making resilience-based decisions about solar and storage that are consistent across cities and counties in different regions.
This team worked to unlock the market potential for solar PV in LMI neighborhoods by evaluating technical potential, economic feasibility, and financial tools and programs. The project developed resources to install solar at a neighborhood scale that can be replicated in other LMI neighborhoods through awareness of solar benefits in underserved communities and business awareness of LMI funding opportunities.
The team worked to address solar deployment barriers and disproportionately low solar awareness by standing up a network of “Solar Ambassadors” in the BIPOC communities of Portland, Gresham, Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Tigard, Oregon. These ambassadors helped introduce their respective communities to solar and identified pathways for installing solar on BIPOC homes through innovative incentives for solar-related energy retrofits and home upgrades.

Contact

If you have questions, contact SEIN@nrel.gov.

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