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* Science

# Community Solar Explained

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mM4KYWuE.m3u8" -->
## Video: Community Solar Explained

[Watch (HLS stream): Community Solar Explained](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mM4KYWuE.m3u8) (3:44)

![Community Solar Explained](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/mM4KYWuE/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2023-10-30. Community solar projects are designed to provide clean energy to homeowners and renters who are unable to install their own solar panels on their rooftops._


---

Nov 3, 2023 9:29 PM UTC

---

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### President Trump Slaps Tariffs on Solar Panels in Major Blow to Renewable Energy

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### How To Build Your Own Solar Viewer

[TIME Explains: Solar Energy](/video/0isWJF6a/)

### TIME Explains: Solar Energy

---


## Transcript

Power is a good thing power is needed. But that power has to be possible to be made and transported and consumed without creating carbon footprint. I see a future where people and breathe clean air. They can drink clean water eat healthy food. And I think Community solar can play a key part of that. You know, you can think of three main types of solar there's anything from rooftop solar something that you might put on your own homes roof to what spell utility-scale solar which is your big electric utility company invest in a huge solar Farms spread out over hundreds of hundreds of acres of land Community solar.

Is that sweet spot. So it's not that super big project have the utility scale. It's not your super small project at the household scale its renewable energy at the community scale and there may reasons why Community solar is very beneficial in part because a lot of households and communities who might not be able to do the other two types of solar list. Best option where they can still get the benefits of clean energy. They can still reduce their bills. They can still breathe cleaner Aire and they can benefit the environment in the process. Utility isn't like us to build two big solar system. They want one to be placed over here.

Wanted to taste over there. So that are closer to the homes. So starving, you know 600 800 or 1,000 homes is probably the maximum. That our systems are able to support. Community solar projects typically, what they do is you have a bunch of households in a community who have agreed to invest in the project. They may be purchasing or paying a subscription fee, but then they get a reduction in their energy bills, but fundamentally what it's doing is we all need energy. Now the question is where you're coming from and is it clean and in this case Community solar by adding more renewable energy onto the grid means that interior using less dirty forms of energy like fossil fuels and it's displacing it done right Community solar it displaces.

Also to a generation so that what remains is cleaner and healthier. Right. Now Community solar represents a small share of that only solar generation, but of course entire energy generation in this country. Now, they're of a person barriers a big one is policy three of the leading states in the country so far and Community solar have been Minnesota New York and Massachusetts and they're not the states that are the biggest. They're not the states that have the most land or have the most people but take a state like Minnesota a big reason why it's historically been a leader is because they've been very smart policy design that is really incentivized Community solar that has made it Equitable and has made it accessible including for low and moderate-income customers and has really tried to build a market based on that.

So part of the challenge now is how can we take this more policies that also Advanced equity and clean energy around Community solar and take that and spread it nationally.

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