Most U.S. states could do far more to provide their residents with affordable, reliable, clean energy and to capture its economic windfall. In the 2025 Community Power Scorecard from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance — evaluating state policies to expand energy democracy and to hold utilities accountable — poor state scores suggest lawmakers must take immediate action to improve. Of the 50 states and D.C., only one state scraped an above average grade (a B), 13 hit the C average, 14 received Ds, and 23 states received a failing F grade.
How could your state earn an A? Our full scoring methodology explains the policies we track, and model policies you can advocate for today. You can also read a summary of 2024’s community power wins and losses and about how to boost your state’s score with these four shortcuts.
This annual scorecard focuses on laws that let communities capture the largest local benefits, shifting from the status quo to an equitable, democratically-accountable energy system. The states that score the highest support locally owned clean energy and competitive access to the grid, empower communities to be more self-reliant, and ensure that everyone benefits from clean energy. High scoring states also hold utilities accountable, protecting consumers and competitors from inflated costs and other abuses of monopoly power.
Check out our Local Energy Policy Toolkit for policy resources for your city, town, or county.
ILSR’s Community Power Scorecard evaluates state policies as they are written, not their implementation. The work of advancing energy democracy requires continued advocacy, vigilance, and effort. The 18 policies evaluated in the scorecard are worth a maximum of 87 points. Scores can be viewed below — scroll to the right within the table to see all columns.
In addition to our own state legislative tracking, our scoring compiles data from the Center for Biological Diversity/Energy and Policy Institute, Clean Energy Works, DSIRE, Energy Justice Lab, Freeing the Grid (IREC and Vote Solar), Inside Climate News, NARUC, and SolarReviews.
To compare state policy environments, explore our interactive Community Power Map.
This article originally posted at ilsr.org. For timely updates from the Energy Democracy Initiative, follow John Farrell on Bluesky or Twitter, and subscribe to the Energy Democracy newsletter.
Use these four shortcuts to boost your state’s ranking on the national Community Power Scorecard leaderboard.
This post breaks down how state-level policies passed in 2024 informed ILSR’s 2025 Community Power Scorecard.
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