How New Jersey Became A Shared Solar Leader — Episode 283 of Local Energy Rules

Kartik Amarnath:
The community solar program in New Jersey is very much seen as a pathway to more energy affordability.

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John Farrell:
What makes New Jersey’s community solar program the fastest growing? Can it sustain the pace as it pursues the most ambitious goal for development, three gigawatts? To answer these questions, I tapped Kartik Amarnath, Vote Solar’s Mid-Atlantic regulatory director in September 2026. He joined me to explain how the Garden State Solar Program meets necessary power demand, provides crucial bill savings, and has innovative tools for getting low-income folks into the solar game. I’m John Farrell, Director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast about monopoly power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system.

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John Farrell:
Kartik, welcome to Local Energy Rules.

Kartik Amarnath:
Thanks so much, John. Pleasure to be here.

John Farrell:
I’m so glad you’re here. I’d love to ask every guest this question, which is, when you were younger, thinking about what you wanted to do when you grew up, is Mid-Atlantic regulatory director and working on solar something that was on your list?

Kartik Amarnath:
Definitely not. The world of energy was not something that was at the front of mind for me. I grew up overseas, moved around a lot, and my grandfather was a diplomat, and so international diplomacy, humanitarian work, that was more of the field that piqued my interest. My family are refugees and immigrants and come from countries that experienced and continue to experience significant political violence. And so that line of work was more of my interest. And over time and through a long… Well, maybe not that long, I’m not that old, but through a winding sort of academic and professional journey, I’ve ended up in the world of energy and I recognize just how important the manner by which we constitute our infrastructure reflects systems of power and oppression. And so how we shape our infrastructure really extends to how we shape the society that we aspire to.

John Farrell:
Well, thank you for sharing that. I’m sure that I and many other people are very glad that you’ve landed here, although if you end up getting to diplomacy and humanitarian work someday, I’m guessing that would still be of interest to you.

Kartik Amarnath:
I think the two are more intimately related than we realize, especially in an era of climate change. And as we barrel further into a climate crisis that we’re not doing enough to address, humanitarian work is going to increasingly look more like complex humanitarian emergencies related to extreme weather events, not just the acute types, but chronic exposure to heat and things like that. And so a lot of the upheaval of society that we are going to be seeing that we are already seeing has to do a lot with these questions of infrastructure, how we power our society, and when displacement happens, how do we serve communities that have been displaced? And a lot of those questions are fundamentally infrastructure questions. So even though these worlds currently exist in silos, given my family background, they don’t exist in silos for me.

John Farrell:
For sure.

Kartik Amarnath:
I’m still a legacy of my grandfather, even though it may not be as straightforward for your typical person to see.

John Farrell:
I’d like to think that more and more Americans are coming around to your de-siloed view, whether it’s wildfires in the West that have that link to climate change and are impacting energy infrastructure, or just the fact that we’re all paying enormous amounts to fill our cars up, our gasoline or diesel vehicles right now because of a war of choice in Iran and the consequences of that. So I think both diplomacy and humanitarian linkages to energy are definitely becoming more noticeable for many, many people.
So let’s pivot though and talk about this community solar program. And I really like how you’re thinking about infrastructure like community solar is playing that role in bridging energy and how that infrastructure and potentially the resilience benefits we get from it, the energy savings benefits can have a humanitarian aim. Can you just give me what’s the big picture about the state’s community solar program?
How many customers is it likely to benefit or maybe you know now how many are signed up and how much clean energy is it going to generate for the New Jersey grid?

Kartik Amarnath:
Sure. So the New Jersey Community Solar Program started as a pilot several years ago under the Murphy administration. New Jersey now has a new governor who was elected late last year. And since the pilot program has transitioned into a permanent program and it has grown to a capacity target of three gigawatts, 3,000 megawatts. So that’s a decent amount of community solar relative to other states that are pursuing community solar programs and especially for a state the size, geographically and population wise of New Jersey. So three gigawatts of community solar, I believe the state is hoping that amount of community solar capacity can ultimately serve 450,000 customers. Now New Jersey, that is about 12% of the state. It’s worth noting that these are subscriptions, so it’s not serving the total energy needs necessarily of every customer, but 450,000 customers in the form of community solar subscribers.

John Farrell:
I’m just amazed by that. I was doing work in Minneapolis, Minnesota, population about 400,000. The peak energy demand for the entire city is something like 600 megawatts. So we’re talking about five times the amount of peak capacity for a fairly large city in community solar. So I don’t know, that is pretty impressive, like you said, in the context of what other states have been doing. And speaking of the size of the program, do you have some sense of why New Jersey has such ambition in terms of community solar? Three gigawatts is as much capacity as three of the other four largest markets combined, Maine, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. All together in terms of the capacity they have on the grid right now is still less than three gigawatts. I mean, New Jersey doesn’t have three gigawatts in the ground yet, but that’s the goal. And some of these other programs like in Maine are already being put on pause.
So I think it pretty quickly is going to outstrip the size of other programs, especially on a per capita basis. What was driving that? What was it that was motivating lawmakers, regulators, advocates to be so ambitious with this community solar program?

Kartik Amarnath:
I’d first preface with it is an incredible target and there are elements of the program’s design which are really exciting. However, there is still a significant journey in order to meet those targets and carry out the vision that’s part of the program. Right now, I think there’s just under 38 megawatts of community solar subscribed to customers. So there’s a long road ahead of us.
But nonetheless, the vision is significant and is worth celebrating so long as it’s carried out. I think the reason why there is so much ambition in New Jersey around community solar across the board has to do with a few things. Generally, like much of the rest of the country, there is growing popularity for clean energy solutions in order to meet our needs, and New Jersey uniquely is the most urbanized state in the country. And so a lot of folks don’t have rooftops that they can put solar panels on. A lot of folks live in multifamily buildings, are renters, or live in other types of housing stock that are not amenable to hosting solar panels or other types of distributed energy resources.
And so in a state where there is growing popularity for clean energy, but not really the structural means to participate in the clean energy economy in a traditional sense, community solar provides that opportunity where you don’t have to host your own panels, you can subscribe to a project.
I think the second really important thing that was a driving factor to why there’s so much ambition in New Jersey for community solar is that it is not only seen as a clean energy program. In fact, the clean energy elements of it might be on par with or even secondary to another priority and that has to do with energy affordability. The community solar program in New Jersey is very much seen as a pathway to more energy affordability.
And there are a lot of elements in the program’s design that embrace that priority. So every community solar project is required to have at least 51% of subscribers come from low to moderate income households or customers. Additionally, in order to demonstrate income eligibility, there is a process called income self-attestation, which is very streamlined. You don’t have to provide documentation that proves your income, the complexities involved in demonstrating your income eligibility. It’s not as complex as you would find in other places. And there are guaranteed utility bill credit discounts that are also relatively significant. In New York for low and moderate income subscribers, there’s I think a 10% statewide bill discount, bill credit discount. Whereas in New Jersey, the minimum is 15% for all subscribers and the minimum for low to moderate income subscribers is 25%. And so there not only is this large and sexy capacity target thrown around 3,000 megawatts or three gigawatts, it’s also ensuring that equity is more a part of the very DNA of the project and ensuring that the revenues generated from these projects, particularly in the form of utility bill discounts, are equitably distributed so that solar developers don’t just get to pocket all of the cash and also maximize to have the most bang for their buck for the folks who stand to benefit the most from a program like this.

John Farrell:
I just really want to thank you for using that phrase large and sexy capacity target so that I’ll have a good header to put in the show notes. That’s terrific. But I really appreciate the context about the intentionality behind reaching folks who would really benefit from the program around affordability, as we know affordability being on the tip of the tongue for many people when it comes to important political priorities right now.
You’ve already talked about the benefits that are available for low and moderate income folks, which is obviously really important because that disproportionately then can benefit Black folks, indigenous, people of color who tend to be disproportionately lower income.
I was also kind of curious about the signup process. You mentioned self-attestation already, and that is really important because a lot of the income qualified programs we otherwise have a laborious signup process. One thing I saw that I thought was super interesting was there’s this automatic enrollment option through municipalities that can be used to reach more LMI customers. Do you know if that’s been used yet? Could you explain a little bit about what that mechanism is? And I’m curious if any community has been using that already.

Kartik Amarnath:
It’s a really exciting program design update that I want to shout out my colleague Elowyn who does legislative work for Vote Solar in New Jersey and in other states in the region. She’s the senior Mid-Atlantic regional director. She was part of a group of advocates who were really pushing for this through legislation. So the municipal program that you’re talking about was implemented last year, and so it’s still relatively new. And so it hasn’t become up and running necessarily yet, but its implementation is still in the early stages and there are few cities in New Jersey that I’m aware of that are pursuing it and hopefully more will be joining. Hoboken comes to mind. I believe Camden also is pursuing this as well as Princeton. And I believe of the cities I just listed, there are some competitive RFPs that are out in order to solicit projects for this opportunity. But since this only became the law of the land in 2025, it’s still in its relative nascency.
Now what this is, is basically provisions for municipalities to automatically enroll subscribers to a project. If municipalities take on a proactive role in community solar development in partnership with a community solar developer for a particular project, then they are allowed to automatically enroll residents of their municipality who are utility customers to the project. And there are of course provisions for opting out as well. Now the automatic enrollment process mandates that, remember that 51% low to moderate income requirement I mentioned earlier, that percentage increases to 80%. So 80% of a project for an automatic enrollment municipal community solar development, 80% have to come from LMI households, low to moderate income households. And yeah, so this enables municipalities to identify target neighborhoods or particular multifamily buildings or census tracks for which folks who could really benefit from utility bill support can automatically enroll without having to do the labor involved in that.
As you mentioned, in other states, that process of subscribing can be pretty laborious. I work in New Jersey, I work in a number of different states in the mid-Atlantic. I live in New York and I’m a community solar subscriber in New York and the process took forever to subscribe to a project that was already up and running. And so provisions like this are really exciting. And I also do want to mention that 25% affordability bill credit discount requirement for low to moderate income subscribers, that 25% is a binding floor. And so what we have in a state like New Jersey, unlike some other states where subscriptions are sort of pooled together and utilities are responsible for enrolling subscribers and things like that, low to moderate income subscribers in particular, what we have in New Jersey is a competitive market for affordability built into this. So the 25% is a binding floor, but through a municipal program like this where municipalities are putting out RFPs for community solar developments, developers can bid on the degree to which they can realize bill savings, bill credit savings for low to moderate income households in that municipality.
And so there’s a competitive market that’s structured in a way where affordability is the outcome. And that’s especially exciting, especially when we’re talking about distributive justice and ensuring that, again, the energy generated from these projects and the dollars attached to that energy generated are more equitably distributed. It’s not the finish line when it comes to equity by any means. There’s so much left to do, especially in a state like New Jersey, but it’s an exciting program design that we don’t see in a lot of other places.

John Farrell:
No, I found it fascinating because it reminds me of community choice aggregation programs, which more generically enroll people automatically in an alternative supply arrangement where the city is then bidding for electricity service in general on behalf of residents and small business customers. There’s a lot of evidence that that generally leads to lower rates for people, can also incrementally increase clean energy adoption. And so it was exciting to see that they had that provision here and to hear that because of the bidding process, there’s actually an opportunity here for cities to increase the amount of bill credit that they’re securing then for those program participants. It sounds like you said it’s kind of new. Do you have a sense for what the kind of communication process looks like for residents that would be auto enrolled? For example, if the city was like, “Hey, this apartment building has lots of affordable units. We know people there are probably energy burdened. We want to automatically enroll them.” How do folks find out? Is it just I crack open my utility bill one day and it’s significantly lower or how does that work?

Kartik Amarnath:
I know that those enrolled are required to be informed. I do not recall who is responsible for it, whether it is the utility, the community solar developer, the municipality or the state regulatory body, the Board of Public Utilities. But in being unable to explicitly answer your question, I will say, however, that what is interesting about this program is that the Board of Public Utilities or the BPU, the state regulator is taking a pretty proactive role in terms of disseminating information about what community solar is, the benefits that it can provide. And that’s really, really vital, especially when a lot of the distributed clean energy solutions that are available to us nationally, a lot of folks are meeting these solutions with some mistrust. And that comes from a history of extractive third party suppliers who have nothing to do with clean energy or any of these solutions really taking advantage of utility customers.
And so that history, especially in communities of color and low income communities that were particularly targeted by escrows and other third party suppliers, that history remains true. And so it’s really great to see that a state regulatory body is taking more of a proactive effort to do away with these concerns when it comes to this very different sort of solution.

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John Farrell:
We’re going to take a short break. When we come back, I ask Kartik about how community solar fits into the state’s grid that’s transmission constrained, as well as accommodating significant growth on the distribution system.
You’re listening to a Local Energy Rules podcast with Kartik Amarnath, Vote Solar’s Mid-Atlantic Regulatory Director. Hey, thanks for listening to Local Energy Rules. We’re so glad you’re here. If you like what you’ve heard, please help other folks find us by giving the show a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Five stars if you think we’ve earned it. As a bonus, I’ll gladly read your review aloud on the show if it includes an energy related joke or pun. Now, back to the program.

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John Farrell:
I wanted to ask you a little bit about how community solar fits into the larger grid picture for New Jersey. Some of this might be a little bit forward-looking because we looked this up while we were talking, it’s about 290 megawatts that are in the ground, but the 38 megawatts was the new projects that are open to subscription.
I’m curious the degree to which community solar is likely to replace other forms of power generation or market purchases for distribution utilities and whether there’s any role being played by energy storage, either intentionally in the program design or if we’re just seeing community solar projects be deployed coincident with energy storage. You said earlier 12% of customers may participate in this three gigawatts, pretty big number. How do you see that playing a role in the broader grid mix in New Jersey?

Kartik Amarnath:
Yeah, and that’s 12% of total customers, and so it might even be a higher percentage if we’re focusing just on residential customers. But how community solar fits into the wider portfolio for the state and the wider landscape has to do with a few factors. So first for some additional context, not only is New Jersey the most urbanized state in the country, it also is severely transmission constrained and in significant need of energy supply. And that has to do with a variety of factors such as skyrocketing energy demand in the wider regional wholesale market known as PJM. So when you have a state that is both in need of energy supply and also significantly transmission constrained, it becomes hard for that new supply to come from far away places or to come from a very large utility scale sort of development, especially when for too long the regional market has had an interconnection backlog of utility scale projects that is just really extensive and a lot of, especially clean energy utility scale projects had been languishing for a long time in the interconnection queue with PJM.
And so what do you do about a situation where you need new supply, but the traditional ways in which you want to bring that supply online are not necessarily available to you, even if utility scale projects, traditional power plants were available in the form of natural gas or other traditional fossil fuel power plants. Due to supply chain dynamics we are currently seeing, those power plants can only be constructed after several years and this situation needs far more immediate solutions. And so community solar provides sort of a sweet spot where solar and storage projects are the fastest to develop. So when we’re talking about speed to power, that is really the solution that you want to focus on when it comes to new supply. And these projects are relatively larger than your customer by customer rooftop solar sort of situation. So it helps to address a supply need partly.
It’s one tool in a wider toolkit, a necessary one, but is also not a silver bullet. It’s part of a suite of solutions that are being pushed for in the state that includes the development of a virtual power plant program that is currently underway the development of the program, as well as the development of a variety of different energy storage programs. These storage programs are long overdue. New Jersey has a two gigawatt energy storage target by 2030. One gigawatt of that target has to come from distributed storage and we don’t have a storage program in place. So we have less than five years to come up with one gigawatt of distributed storage without a storage program in place. The behind the meter program is currently under development and hopefully we’ll also see larger scale distributed storage programs also come to fruition very, very soon. Time is of the essence.
When it comes to community solar paired with storage, I really appreciate you asking this question because I’ve been trying to bring this up with stakeholders in New Jersey’s energy landscape as well as state regulators in the form of public comment and just been trying to raise the alarm about how we need a subscriber based model for storage projects as well as pairing for community solar plus storage. Pairing needs to be available for community solar projects to also work with storage. And the reason I think this is important is, as I mentioned, this is the most urbanized state in the country. And so the real way in which we can ensure that the best elements of distributed equity that we see in the community solar program, the way in which we ensure that those are carried over to other clean energy solutions that the state is proposing is by ensuring that these subscriber based models also carry over to other technologies and other forms of serving the grid through these technologies.
So I think it would be really exciting if New Jersey developed opportunities where this three gigawatts of community solar capacity that is already being incentivized through the state program can become dispatchable and can participate as a result of storage pairing in virtual power plant programs.
They’re also really exciting community scale distributed capacity procurements that are happening in other states. Those could be an inspiration for designing a more locally relevant program in New Jersey. What comes to mind is the dispatchable distributed generation program in Colorado where one of the utilities in Colorado is required to procure 50 megawatts of community scale solar and storage in particular geographies. So particular, I believe, peri-urban areas that are in need of interventions that can improve reliability because there is a lot of grid congestion happening in those areas. And while these far more expensive and longer to achieve grid upgrades are taking place at a more incremental pace, these community scale assets can provide those reliability services and those grid services in these congested sort of load pockets.
And it’s compelling to me because it’s looking at the needs of the grid, how that relates to dynamics of urbanization and coming up with a solution. Now, if we can do something like that in New Jersey, which has a lot of urban areas that are facing significant grid congestion and ensure that these projects that are serving the grid also provide participation pathways from low to moderate income customers, then we have a really exciting way in which we can ensure that no one is left behind in the clean energy transition in New Jersey, especially given the local challenges.

John Farrell:
I love that you have brought a great segue for my next question, which was kind of about this idea of grid capacity. What we’ve seen in Minnesota and in other states is that community solar program growth has slowed when available capacity on the distribution grid, the lower voltage system was used up in the easy to develop places. So it feels like this idea of incorporating storage as a compliment, whether it’s a distributed generation program that encourages energy storage or pairing it explicitly with the community solar program, both could have significant benefits there. I’m curious if there’s other elements of this program design. I’m thinking about, we’ve seen concepts like flexible interconnection, groups like IREC have worked on that where the agreement you have with the utility might say, oh, you can export energy except during these few hours a year when we are reaching peak capacity on this particular place on the grid.
So we can build the project without having to wait five years or three years for this transformer upgrade or this other upgrade because we are curtailing that output just a few hours out of the year in order to make sure that we can get into those spaces. Energy storage also provides that kind of same stress relief opportunity for the grid. So yeah, obviously the storage projects are already moving in that direction. Is there anything else that was sort of intentionally designed in this program or other parallel programs that New Jersey is using to be prepared? Because from 300 megawatts to three gigawatts is a big jump in the next few years. Yeah. What do you see as the landscape like for making sure the grid can accommodate that?

Kartik Amarnath:
Yeah, there are a few parallel initiatives and developments that are happening. Interestingly, two days before our conversation, so I believe this happened. Yeah, the bill was signed September 9th. Dual use solar projects are now eligible to participate in the community solar program. So dual use projects are commonly more so known as agrivoltaic projects. So solar that is installed on farmland for the mutual benefit of the agricultural needs of that land as well as optimizing for energy generation, solar-based energy generation. But more explicitly to your question around grid congestion, yeah, the need for modernizing the grid in New Jersey is urgent. And this also comes at a time where New Jersey last year saw utility bill increases that were greater than any other state in the country, second only to Washington DC. So how do you modernize the grid, which is going to involve some costs? How are you going to do that when the state’s customers are already paying so much and the bill increases are just skyrocketing?
The experience of bill increases are really significant for folks, especially in recent years. So how do you go about doing that? I am encouraged that the Board of Public Utilities has recently updated their interconnection rules and IREC was a big part of that. So there are some provisions that are particularly exciting, like for example, utilities are now required to study project proposals based on their export capacity rather than their nameplate capacity. And so your contribution to grid stress with your particular project looks very different when it’s just about how much you are exporting to the grid as opposed to the maximum possible output that the technologies involved in that particular proposal can have. And it also accounts through other initiatives such as there’s a proceeding, a regulatory proceeding aimed at developing a requirement for utilities to produce proactive system upgrade plans.
And through an initiative like that, not only are we studying distributed energy resources with more updated industry best practices, but also recognizing that comprehensive grid planning, especially at the distribution level, needs to encompass both load and generation and needs to encompass how distributed energy resources can contribute to relieving grid congestion. And that as a result properly right sizes what system upgrades need to look like as opposed to what they traditionally would have looked like had we not valued distributed energy resources as viable grid assets that serve the grid and the needs of the grid, especially when called upon through things like dispatchability. We hope that a lot of these initiatives are still in progress. Their final outcome is yet to be determined. And then implementation of course is another story as well, but we’re cautiously optimistic. And to the point of flexible interconnection, we’re also hopeful that as part of these proceedings that I listed, that utilities ultimately come up with flexible interconnection tariffs that are reflective again of industry best practices, which are already captured by organizations like IEEE and others who are really the authority on what distributed energy resources are capable of, how they can be deployed safely and responsibly, et cetera.

John Farrell:
And it’s worth noting as I often do that the distribution utilities in New Jersey, I know the state is restructured and so they don’t own all of the same assets that vertically integrated ones do in states like mine in Minnesota. They still do make their money though based on capital investment in the distribution grid. So when you talk about affordability, there is that very real tension between if the utility plans only to use the status quo methods of doing grid upgrades, which means infrastructure investments, new equipment, new installations, it could be much more expensive than having different processes that look at flexible interconnection, that look at how distributed generation could meet some of those needs, at least in the interim.

Kartik Amarnath:
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot to be excited about, but we have to be real about the urgency of the needs of the grid and the needs of folks in New Jersey. When it comes to costs, as you rightly mentioned, a lot of that has to do with utility profits and the utility profit model. And traditionally utilities make money off of the stuff they get to build and to own. And if you have these technologies available to minimize the need to build more, then that clashes with the traditional utility business model. And so there is a proceeding happening in New Jersey right now that is explicitly about modernizing the utility business model. And we’re hoping that some of the outcomes of that proceeding can right size utility profits and utility profit making so that these other solutions and their potential are properly captured, especially their cost saving potential and their potential to meet reliability needs without the need for expensive traditional system upgrades.
Over July 4th, your listeners might remember over the July 4th weekend, there was a historic heat wave and in New Jersey that historic heatwave was followed by life-threatening thunderstorms and floods. And over that period, that multi-day period, 750,000 customers lost power. That’s 20% of the state lost power during life-threatening weather conditions. And that’s happening in a state that also saw the largest utility bill increases last year next to DC. And so we really need to get things right so that utilities are not making more than they need to in order to provide reliable service and that they provide reliable service. And both of those things can happen when we deploy these technologies equitably and responsibly and optimize for what they can do to serve all customers, not just the customers who have the ability to own their own solar panel on top of their rooftop, but really harness these technologies so that they can serve everyone and they’re capable of doing that. We know that they’re capable of doing that and it’s about putting the right regulatory and market architecture in place so that they can start doing that and we can start to see bills go down.

John Farrell:
It has been so great to talk to you about this impressive program and the depth of commitment to distributive equity to low and moderate income folks, the integration with the sort of broader sense of system planning. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that ILSR has some great tracker tools. If you want to see the growth of the program, we have a quarterly tracker of capacity. We have a deep dive on each state’s program rules so you can learn more about that. But I’m curious, Kartik, we’ve talked a lot through this program. Is there anything that we missed that you think folks should know about the New Jersey Community Solar Program that you think is noteworthy? Or barring that, is there something that you just want to emphasize as we close out here of this is the cool thing that we talked about that you hope people leave with?

Kartik Amarnath:
It’s a really exciting program and it is but one tool in a wider toolkit. And my hope is that the best elements of that program can carry over to the other initiatives and solutions that the state is working on developing to realize a more affordable and resilient and reliable grid, particularly around equity. And there’s some real concerns about whether or not that will happen, whether or not equity is going to be prioritized when it comes to these other programs, these other tools in the toolkit. And so the fight continues. We have not arrived by any means. And so much of this fight touches on what we just talked about with regards to how utilities make a profit, how much they get to make a profit. And yeah, please feel free to reach out to the good folks at Vote Solar if you’d like to get involved in that fight.

John Farrell:
Well, Kartik, thank you again for joining me for this conversation about New Jersey’s Community Solar Program. It was really great to learn more and to dive deep. And my thanks to you and your colleagues for the great work helping get this program stood up because it’s nice to have something that you can look to for creating these similar programs and similar initiatives across the country.

Kartik Amarnath:
Thanks so much, John. I really appreciate the kind words.

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John Farrell:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Local Energy Rules with Kartik Amarnath, Vote Solar’s Mid-Atlantic Regulatory Director. We had a great conversation about New Jersey’s fast-growing community solar program. To see how New Jersey and other states are doing with community solar, as well as 20 other key energy democracy policies, check out ILSR’s newly revised community power scorecard and our quarterly community solar tracker. Also on the show page, we’ll link to a few other recent podcasts about community solar, including one about Alaska’s new program in episode 279, a conversation about community solar for manufactured homes in episode 277, and a great overview of cooperative community solar in Maine in episode 257. Before we close, Karthik asked me to clarify two minor details. When he referenced 38 megawatts out of the 291 that are deployed, he said that represents the amount open for new subscriptions right now, but it’s capacity from the pilot program that carried over to the new one.
He also wanted to clarify that the recent major power outage that affected 20% of the state’s customers was about 850,000 households. Local Energy Rules is produced by myself and Ingrid Behrsin with editing provided by audio engineer Drew Birschbach. Tune back into Local Energy Rules every two weeks to hear how we can take on concentrated power to transform the energy system. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.