Project Menu

Project Director

Vero Bourg-Meyer

[email protected]

Project Director

Hanna Jones

[email protected]

Solar for All

Photo by Dennis Schroeder / NREL

Deploying Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All funds to communities effectively and efficiently within five years of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s awards to states will require sustained and strategic collaboration across the country. CESA’s Solar for All team actively supports grantees nationwide through a portfolio of activities and resources, coordinated with federal agencies, national labs, and other national nonprofits.

Solar for All (SFA) is a competitive grants program administered by EPA. SFA provides grantees, including states, nonprofits, and tribes, with $7 billion to expand solar access to low-income households between 2024 and 2029. Building on over a decade of expertise in LMI solar, including the DOE-funded Scaling Up Solar project, CESA assisted 40+ states in applying to the SFA competition.

Since April 2024, CESA expanded its network and serves as the connective tissue among its network of over 50 grantees, regardless of CESA membership, ensuring they are well-informed, bringing them together several times per week for discussions, and sharing best practices and resources to support program design and implementation.

Convene
Convene

CESA convenes the Solar for All (SFA) network weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, depending on the topic, as requested by the national SFA grantees network. These convenings accelerate learning and program deployment across the network about fundamental program features like savings, subsidy structures, federal payment processes, Davis Bacon compliance, consumer protection, approaches to operation and maintenance, and much more.

CESA publishes a monthly calendar of convenings and meetings available to SFA grantees only. Currently, CESA’s groups include: all-grantees office hours, onboarding meetings for new hires of SFA grantees, the tribal partnerships working group, the multistate grantee coordination working group, the workplan analysis support group, the third-party ownership working group, the direct pay working group, join procurements discussions, the community solar opportunity states working group, the SFA reporting working group, quality assurance managers coordination meetings, and the terms and conditions compliance working group. This list changes over time, based on needs and requests.

These meetings are reserved to Solar for All grantees only and are not open to the public or recorded. Private sector consultants are not allowed in the meetings, and AI tools are not authorized.

To be made aware of future convenings, Solar for All grantees can join CESA’s SFA grantee-only mailing list by emailing Hanna ([email protected]). Additional and more targeted working groups will continue to be developed as implementation work gets under way.

In addition, some grantees may benefit from joining the National Community Solar Partnership+, including the Solar+Storage Monetization Working Group and the Defining, Achieving, and Verifying Savings Working Group. To learn more, please email Hanna.

Office hours: CESA Solar for All office hours are held every Wednesday, from 3 to 4:30 pm ET.

  • What are CESA office hours? CESA office hours are an open line of communication among Solar for All grantees. Sometimes CESA staff may have answers for you, but often the value of office hours will be talking to other grantees, including states and nonprofits, sharing ideas, working through a problem together, and exchanging information gathered within our respective information silos and across program officers.
  • What do we talk about in these meetings? There is no agenda. All Solar for All topics are welcome, from large program design strategies to nitty-gritty details of budgets or navigating the federal grants process.
  • What does it look like? They vary in size, from 10 to 200 people, depending on grant activities, and every week is different.
  • Who can sign up? All Solar For All grantees are welcome to attend. Private sector consultants may not participate.
  • How to sign up? Email Hanna indicating your Solar for All affiliation to receive a calendar invitation.
  • Do I have to commit to attending all of these? No. Attend one or attend them all. There is no commitment.
  • Do I have to be a CESA member to participate? No. But you do have to be a Solar for All grantee.
Inform
Assist

To stay up to date on Solar for All activities, resources, and news, state agencies and green bank staff can sign up for our mailing list here.

CESA’s activities are driven by states and nonprofit grantees. Let us know what your state agency’s needs are, including your ideas for activities that would be well-suited for action by multiple states, by emailing Hanna Jones and Vero Bourg-Meyer.

Note that CESA is not an advocacy organization and that we do not offer services to other sub-national actors, for-profits, or non-profits that are not affiliated with a Solar for All grantees.

Selected Resources:

Meaningful Household Savings: Best Practices for Achieving Equitable Solar Development

How can households achieve meaningful savings from solar? The U.S. Department of Energy-initiated meaningful household savings Community of Practice and this report focus on electricity bill savings, other household savings, wealth-building opportunities, and other benefits such as tenant services provided to residents in master-metered buildings. The authors and their partners collected information about ways meaningful household savings have been achieved; researched best practices to define, achieve, and quantify meaningful household savings; and identified strategies to scale the adoption and implementation of successful methods. The report includes six case studies and information about savings verification. 

Build America Buy America and Domestic Content: A Primer for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All Program

This document, part of CESA’s IRA Explainers and Guides Series for States, answers questions about the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act and the domestic content bonus tax credit program requirements for awardees of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All program. It will be useful to other stakeholders as well to understand how BABA will apply to Solar for All and the differences between BABA and the tax credit requirements.

Solar for All Briefing for Community-Based Organizations

This deck is a short series of recommendations to Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) that wish to better understand the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All competition and how to engage with the Solar for All opportunities. It briefly introduces the Solar for All competition, offers a realistic timeline for programs and funding deployment, and suggests concrete steps and resources for CBOs to support states in ensuring the success of the program.

Solar For All List of Programmatic Functions

Solar For All List of Programmatic Functions is a comprehensive list of the functions needed to design and deploy a low- and moderate-income solar program as part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All competition. This list can help states clarify which functions are needed and which are not for each program/sector, evaluate which functions to keep in-house vs. procure externally, and negotiate with EPA with a clearer understanding of next steps.

Empowering Tomorrow: A Preview of States’ Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All Programs

The Clean Energy States Alliance has published a report summarizing trends and calculating the potential impact of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s $7 billion Solar for All competition. This report, Empowering Tomorrow: A Preview of States’ Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All Programs, provides the first public visibility into the range of state proposals that have been submitted in response to this competition. The report can serve as a market readiness tool, to help states prepare for a massive and historic influx of LMI solar funding.

LMI Single-Family Homes

CESA’s 2023 Solar for All Program Design Guidance for States and accompanying Template Request for Proposals offer a blueprint as well as insights and recommendations to state agencies to design and launch single-family homes solar lease Solar for All programs in their state, while maximizing tax credits and IRA tax credit bonuses. This package was developed as a plug and play resource with funding from DOE.

LMI Multi-Family Solar and Solar+Storage

CESA’s Multifamily Affordable Housing Solar and Solar+Storage: Solar for All Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Program Design Options for States offers simple options for states to design and deploy multifamily affordable housing solar and/or solar+storage to their Solar for All programs portfolio. It can be used in states that do not already have MFAH solar or solar+storage policies and programs in place, and in states that wish to expand their current program offerings to reach LMI households or provide additional benefits to disadvantaged communities.

LMI Community Solar

There are many available models of community solar throughout the country, but not all will meet the goals of EPA’s Solar for All competition. Community Solar for Low-Income and Disadvantaged Communities: Solar for All Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Program Design Options for States streamlines design choices for states and presents three community solar models, with a few variations, that states and territories could use to shape state community solar programs.

Davis-Bacon Primer

This Davis-Bacon (DBA) Primer for States Implementing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All Program is an explainer in the form of a question-and-answer document. It provides a plain English overview of DBA for state staff who will implement the Inflation Reduction Act.

LMI Manufactured Homes Solar

Solar for Manufactured Homes: An Assessment of the Opportunities and Challenges in 14 States is a three-part report addressing the critically underserved manufactured homes solar sector. It was produced by CESA with input from states and utilities between 2019 and 2023.

LMI Solar Stakeholder Engagement

Community Outreach and Solar Equity: A Guide for States on Collaborating with Community-Based Organizations, is aimed at state energy agencies that are looking to strengthen their relationships with local under-resourced communities or are beginning to engage in energy justice work. The guide is a collection of best practices, ideas, and principles that provide states a foundation for building equitable relationships with community-based organizations and for working with them on solar development.

CBO Database Map

Community Outreach and Solar Equity: A Guide for States on Collaborating with Community-Based Organizations, is aimed at state energy agencies that are looking to strengthen their relationships with local under-resourced communities or are beginning to engage in energy justice work. The guide is a collection of best practices, ideas, and principles that provide states a foundation for building equitable relationships with community-based organizations and for working with them on solar development.

Consumer Protection for Community Solar: A Guide for States

This 2017 guidebook and associated webinar discuss the consumer protection issues that may arise in community solar projects for residential consumers and the role that states can play in ensuring appropriate protections.

LMI-Serving Community Institutions for Philanthropies

The Energize Your Impact report explores how philanthropic foundations have supported the deployment of solar and solar+storage at LMI-serving community institutions, including multifamily affordable housing, community centers, senior care facilities, educational facilities, and health centers. It provides a menu of strategies for foundations to bring clean energy benefits to LMI households and communities.

Solar with Justice - English version cover

Solar With Justice

Solar with Justice: Strategies for Powering Up Under-Resourced Communities and Growing an Inclusive Solar Market provides recommendations on how to deliver meaningful, long-lasting benefits to disadvantaged communities with solar. It was produced by CESA in partnership with the Jackson State University Department of Urban & Regional Planning, the Partnership for Southern Equity, PaulosAnalysis, the University of Michigan School for Environment & Sustainability, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, and The Solutions Project following more than 90 policymakers, community group leaders, solar experts, and energy equity advocates interviews.

Solar with Justice - English version cover

CESA’s Scaling Up Solar resource page contains many more resources to support stakeholders in building LMI solar programs, include consumer education, consumer protection, tools, and templates for state programs.