You won’t need your own solar panels to participate in this renewable energy solution
Solar power is climate-friendly and increasingly affordable, with prices dropping by 36% in Washington state over the past five years, according to the national Solar Energy Industries Association.
But the sun still generates just a tiny sliver of Washington state’s electricity — less than 1%.
That needs to change if the state is going to meet its clean energy and climate aspirations, solar industry members and advocates say. In 2019, Washington state set a goal to meet all of its electricity needs without producing any planet-warming greenhouse gases by 2045.
Greenhouse gases are produced when fossil fuels, like natural gas or coal, are burned for power, according to the EPA.
“We are going to need to accelerate our adoption of solar,” said Markus Virta, president of the Washington Solar Energy Industries Association and director of sales and business development at Bellingham-based company Western Solar. “It’s going to require all of us pulling in the same direction.”
President Joe Biden’s administration seems to agree, with the federal Department of Energy unveiling a blueprint earlier this month that maps the path to a future in which nearly half of the country’s electricity comes from solar by 2050. That’s a big leap, considering solar currently makes up 3% of the U.S.’s energy mix, according to an August press release from the White House.
What would an equitable yet urgent transition toward solar power look like in Washington?
It’s going to take smart policies at all levels of the government, many local solar industry members say, and will require that utilities — most of which still rely on a more than century-old fossil fuel business model — stop blocking renewable energy legislation, experts say.
“Everyone wants to keep business-as-usual,” said Eric Wilson, who is a board member for the nonprofit Solar Washington and works at Bellingham-based company CapStone Solar. “And the people who really want to keep it are the utilities, who make money doing it.”
Community solar: The next big thing?
The vast majority of electric customers in Washington state can’t access rooftop solar, Mason Rolph, president of nonprofit Olympia Community Solar, said at a recent Energy Club event organized by Bellingham-based nonprofit Sustainable Connections.
People can save big on their electricity bills if they own solar panels, since they then have to purchase less energy generated by utility companies. Here’s the catch: In order to get rooftop solar, you typically have to own the building you live in, be able to afford the upfront cost of the system and have a roof that can support the panels and gets plenty of sun, Rolph said.
The solution to this inaccessibility is community solar, advocates say.
“The lowest-hanging fruit is a concept known as community solar,” Virta said. “Washington doesn’t really have a well-functioning community solar program.”
A community solar project is a large solar installation funded by multiple community subscribers, who purchase shares of a community solar project. Each community subscriber would receive credits on their electricity bill proportional to the energy generated by their share of the system.
In other words, people can glean the climate and financial benefits of solar without having panels on the building in which they live. Participants typically receive these credits for a predetermined period of time, say 10 years, after which the solar power is used by the developer or to power the facility the project is sited on, Virta said.
“Community solar is super easy,” said Kate Hartgering, community projects manager for Puget Sound Energy, who presented on community solar at the recent Sustainable Connections event. “It doesn’t require any maintenance, any ownership.”
More policy needed
Community solar is taking off nationwide and in Washington, with more than 30 projects completed statewide, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Bellingham will see a new community solar project pop up in 2022. The project, developed by local electric utility Puget Sound Energy, will be sited on the Whatcom Falls Water Storage Tank and provide an estimated 270 solar shares.
PSE also has two other community solar projects in the works — one on a high school in Olympia and another on an open space near the central Washington city of Kittitas. Both are expected to begin operating later this year, according to PSE. Customers can sign up to participate in any PSE community solar project, even if they don’t live near it.
Here’s the issue some solar advocates have with the state’s current community solar policy: It doesn’t require utilities to help customers access community solar not developed by the utility.
If a nonprofit developed a community solar project, for example, Puget Sound Energy does not give participating customers credits on their bill like it would for a project the utility developed itself. This crediting system is referred to as virtual net metering, Virta said.
“Utilities have a monopoly on community solar in their service territory because they don’t allow virtual net metering on projects not built and developed by themselves,” Virta said.
A bill, HB 1046, was introduced last legislative session in the Washington House of Representatives that would create a formal program encouraging utilities to connect customers with community solar projects.
“The bill would allow third-party companies to compete,” Rolph of Olympia Community Solar said at the Sustainable Connections event. “It would create a competitive marketplace to do that.”
In order to develop good community solar policy, the conversation around solar needs to shift, said Stephanie Sisson, solar executive administrator at CapStone Solar. Rather than just being viewed as a luxury for the wealthy, it should be discussed as a strategy to save average people money and provide them with the resources they need in their day-to-day lives, she said.
“’It shouldn’t be partisan,” Sisson said. “People just need reliable electrical sources for their family.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
