New England Solar Cost-Reduction Partnership

Over the course of three years, the Partnership worked to drive down regional solar soft costs and enable scaled deployment of rooftop solar. The project was completed in the fall of 2016. CESA produced a summary report on the Partnership’s activities, including information on project accomplishments, lessons learned, and recommendations for future efforts.

The Partnership tackled a wide range of "soft cost" barriers to solar deployment, including: difficult, costly, and slow permitting and interconnection processes in some locations; the need for new financing tools and cost-efficient group purchasing arrangements; and unfavorable zoning rules for solar in some jurisdictions.

The Partnership reduced solar soft costs by pursuing four broad objectives:

1. Increasing coordination among participating states and with key stakeholders in those states.
2. Refining, combining, and deploying innovative tools and practices from Connecticut and Massachusetts Rooftop Solar Challenge I projects, and from other earlier efforts in those states and Vermont.
3. Implementing other best practices more widely across the region, with a particular focus on achieving more consistent policies and practices across state lines.
4. Communicating lessons learned and best practices beyond New England.

The lead state agencies for the Partnership were:

• Connecticut Green Bank
• The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
• The New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning
• The Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources and Rhode Island Commerce Corporation
• The Vermont Public Service Department

This project was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative Rooftop Solar Challenge II program.

If you have any questions about the New England Solar Cost-Reduction Partnership, contact Nate Hausman at [email protected].