What is Community-Owned Solar?
Community-owned solar is a shared solar installation where the users also own and govern it. Unlike typical community solar programs — where residents subscribe to a utility-run array and receive a bill credit — community-owned solar means members hold equity stakes, vote on key decisions, and keep the financial benefits circulating locally.
Why Community-Owned Solar?
Local Wealth That Stays Local
When a community owns its solar array, the financial returns stay in the neighborhood. Instead of profits flowing to distant investors or utility shareholders, revenue is reinvested locally — lowering energy bills, funding cooperative services, and building long-term wealth for members. Research shows local economic impacts are 3.4 times higher in community-owned projects than in comparable utility-owned ones.
Solar Access for Everyone
Community-owned solar lets renters, low-income households, and anyone without a suitable rooftop participate in — and profit from — clean energy. By organizing through cooperatives or member-owned LLCs, communities can pool resources to develop solar that would be out of reach for any individual household, spreading both the costs and the benefits equitably across members.
Ownership is Influence
Most community solar programs still leave residents as consumers, not decision-makers. Community-owned solar is different: members vote on key decisions, shape how the project is run, and hold genuine governance rights over their energy infrastructure. This gives communities control over where energy dollars go and who benefits — a meaningful step toward energy democracy.
Resilience When It Matters Most
A Just Energy Transition
The shift away from fossil fuels doesn't automatically benefit everyone equally. Community ownership ensures that the transition is driven by and for the people most affected by energy costs and climate impacts — not just by market forces. States with strong community-ownership policies have shown that deliberate policy design, not market conditions alone, determines who gets to own the clean energy future.
How it Works
A community-owned solar project starts with a group of people — neighbors, cooperative members, or a local organization — pooling resources to collectively own a solar array. The array connects to the electric grid, and each member receives a credit on their utility bill based on their share of the electricity generated, a mechanism called virtual net metering. This is what makes community solar accessible to renters, apartment dwellers, and anyone whose property isn't suited for rooftop panels.
The key difference from typical community solar is ownership. When a utility or developer owns the array, profits flow outward. When the community owns it, members hold equity stakes, share in the revenue, and vote on how the project is run. Most projects are organized as rural electric cooperatives or member-owned LLCs, combining member contributions, grants, and loans to cover upfront costs. Whether a project can be built and stay financially viable depends heavily on state policy — virtual net metering rules, credit rates, and capacity limits determine how much a project earns and who is allowed to own one.
How its Paid
The cost of building a community geothermal system depends on system size, local geology, the number of buildings connected, and the ownership/financing approach. In many places, a utility can design, build, and operate the system, and households pay through a subscription model—similar to how people pay for gas service today.A NYSERDA study found that many district energy systems include some level of public-sector involvement, ranging from partial to full ownership, depending on local goals and governance priorities
Where its Applicable
Geothermal works anywhere buildings need heating and cooling, and it becomes especially powerful when multiple buildings can share resources. Communities can look for opportunities in neighborhoods, civic buildings, commercial areas, and existing infrastructure to build a coalition and identify strong starting points. Geothermal systems can also expand beyond the ground itself—heat pumps can use ponds, lakes, rivers, or wastewateras stable thermal sources and sinks, which can create even more options for districts and towns. The most successful projects often match local opportunities (sources and users of heat) with strong community engagement and planning.