As shown in selected episodes of the Local Energy Rules podcast, when it comes to maximizing the benefits of clean energy projects for households and communities, local ownership is the gold standard. Local clean energy ownership occurs when local groups or residents own and/or have meaningful decision-making power over key aspects of clean energy projects, including construction, operations, and the distribution of benefits.
Local ownership can take various forms, from community solar owned by a membership cooperative; to a wind farm with small, local investors; to solar on a neighborhood community center’s roof. But regardless of form, local ownership is superior to large-scale corporate clean energy across multiple dimensions.
Households Save Money and Build Wealth
For rooftop solar owners, community solar subscribers, and customers of publicly-owned utilities, local ownership maximizes the proceeds of clean energy projects by avoiding profit-sharing with third-parties. For example, our 2023 Advantage Local report found that a household that owned its own rooftop solar array could receive an extra $12,000 in lifetime energy bill savings, compared to third-party ownership.
Local Energy Rules Episode 78 and Episode 138 feature Ingrid Vila, director of Puerto Rico-based nonprofit Cambio, discussing their fight for locally-owned rooftop solar for island residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and their “Queremos Sol” policy vision and coalition. When paired with energy storage, local rooftop solar ownership would make households more resilient against extreme weather and grid blackouts — an urgently-needed alternative to the current centralized, fossil-fuel model.
Community solar offers another opportunity for households who can’t adopt rooftop solar to save on energy costs and become solar owners. In Episode 108, Lynn Benander explains how Co-op Power helps develop community solar cooperatives, which can give participating households energy bill discounts of up to 20% and ownership in the project, with an opportunity to share in profits.
Local Economies Recirculate Financial Returns
When clean energy projects are locally owned, financial returns stay and recirculate in the local economy — rather than leaving the community to line the pockets of outside investors and big utility companies. ILSR’s analysis found that rooftop and community solar projects owned by households provide three-times the value to local entities like energy users, banks, landowners, and local governments, compared to outside ownership.
Local Energy Rules Episode 35 chronicles how Iowa’s Winneshiek Energy District works to keep energy dollars in the community by helping households adopt energy efficiency, home electrification, and locally-owned renewables.
In Episode 208, Christina Hollenback of Justice Capital and Joseph McNeil of SAGE Development Authority explain how the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is developing its own wind farm instead of leasing their land to an outside developer. Doing so increases the community’s revenue from the project, which they can then reinvest locally – while also building their energy sovereignty.
Communities Grow Local Jobs
Local ownership can also create more local jobs, as energy dollars recirculate in the community — plus, local owners may be more inclined to prioritize hiring locally. Locally-owned wind farms have been found to create 1.1 to 3.1 times more jobs than outside-owned wind farms during the construction phase alone.
As outlined in Episode 57, Cooperative Energy Futures chose to ensure that the installer they worked with for a solar project in North Minneapolis hired underrepresented minority workers — a choice enabled by their ownership and control over the project.
We Build Our Political Power
Perhaps the most transformative community benefits of local ownership are the political power and public support for clean energy that come from organizing for energy democracy.
Local ownership puts democratic decision-making in the hands of communities — who, as direct beneficiaries of clean energy projects, then have more incentive to lobby lawmakers for favorable policies. Dispersed ownership of clean energy has been found to support the longevity of supportive policies in countries like Germany. People simply prefer local or community ownership of clean energy projects — research has shown that it’s associated with more favorable attitudes toward future development.
Featured in Episode 103 and Episode 64, Solar United Neighbors helps households go solar, primarily through solar buying groups — but it also organizes its members to push for pro-local solar policies and programs.
When projects are locally owned, communities are more able to develop creative solutions to their problems, in line with local needs and resources. For example, Episode 159 recounts the story of an electric co-op called Holy Cross Energy that has pursued a wide range of local clean energy strategies — including an all-electric affordable housing project for teachers and a community solar project for a manufactured housing community.
For timely updates from the Energy Democracy Initiative, follow John Farrell on Twitter, subscribe to the Energy Democracy weekly update, and check out the Local Energy Rules podcast.
Featured Photo Credit: iStock