By VoltAdmin·1 reply
US community solar passed 10 GW of subscribed capacity in 2025 — roughly 2.5 million households receiving bill credits from shared solar arrays they can't own or install themselves. NRDC and SEIA data break down which states are leading, what design decisions are driving low-income access, and why 30 states still have no meaningful community solar market.
Read the full article: /articles/community-solar-10gw-milestone-2025
Oregon has community solar through PGE and Pacific Power but waitlists are long. I signed up for a PGE Clean Wind subscription as a placeholder while I'm on the community solar waitlist — not the same economics, but it's what a renter in a north-facing unit can actually do. The article's point about income-qualified access being an afterthought in most states tracks. Oregon isn't as bad as some but it's not Illinois.
The Illinois Adjustable Block Program requiring 50% of capacity reserved for income-qualified households is the policy design detail I keep pointing people to. That provision directly addresses the problem where community solar gets built and immediately subscribed by middle-income households before low-income renters can access it. Several states are now copying the Illinois model.
The Southeast situation — Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia all without community solar statutes — is frustrating given the solar resources those states have. The barrier isn't technical or economic, it's that utilities without regulatory compulsion won't create virtual net metering arrangements that reduce their revenue. Utility commission proceedings rather than legislation seem to be the path in some of those states.
The IRA Section 48E Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit adding 10–20% ITC on top of the base 30% for projects serving income-qualified households is the federal piece that changed project economics. Without that adder, developers were relying entirely on state subsidy design to make income-qualified subscriptions work financially. The article explains the stacking correctly.
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