Pilot program looking for 100 low- income, solar curious households

December 15, 2024
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Anya Litvak

One day in October, Mark Gorman was scanning the daily newsletter from
his local public radio station when a story caught his eye. Might an
incoming Trump administration endanger a new residential solar leasing
program being rolled out in southwestern Pennsylvania, the story asked?

Mr. Gorman wasn’t so much alarmed that the program would be cut if
Donald Trump reoccupied the Oval Office; as a retired environmental
advocate who moved back to Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C., four years
ago, he knows policy gears turn slowly in the nation’s capital.
It was the eligibility criteria that drew him in: Pennsylvania Bright was
offering to lease solar panels to low- and moderate-income households,
those earning below $100,000 a year.

Mr. Gorman and his wife, Kate Walker, fit the bill. They’d been curious
about solar for years but didn’t know if they could make it work financially.

Now, they believe they can. Sometime this spring, solar panels will be
installed on the roof of their Bloomfield townhouse. Their lease includes a
monthly payment of $122, which is expected to offset their average
monthly electricity bill of $103 and add a Tesla battery for storage.

“Even if it breaks even, that’s a win for the environment,” Mr. Gorman said.
“The nice thing about a lease, it’s like a renting a house,” he said. “We’ll
have an app on our phone and we can track how the system is working.”
If something seems amiss, the owner is responsible for fixing it.

That owner will be a Rhode Island-based nonprofit called the Capital Good
Fund. The organization gives loans to low-income households and in
September launched the Pennsylvania Bright program with a target of 100
solar installations in southwestern Pennsylvania, and 60 in the
southeastern part of the state, within a year.

Of those, half would be for solar panels only and the other half for solar and
battery backup like at the Gormans’ house.

So far, the program has secured seven leases across five counties in the
Pittsburgh region, according to Alexis McCarthy, director of Pennsylvania
Bright.

“Our No. 1 target is 20% savings on day one,” Ms. McCarthy said.

Until recently in Pennsylvania, the cost of electricity has been relatively low
and steady – the cost of the commodity, that is. Electric bills have
continued to creep up in part because utilities have increased the cost of
other services, such as a flat customer fee assessed each month and
distribution charges.

But next year is likely to bring bigger spikes.

During a virtual seminar Friday, Sharon Pillar, executive director of the
Pennsylvania Solar Center, outlined the stakes for electricity consumers in
the coming years.

With large demand increases coming from datacenters, electric cars and
manufacturing, and the cost of securing enough generation for the regional
grid shooting up this year, Ms. Pillar warned that electricity costs are set to
rise by up to 29% in 2025, citing a calculation from the Natural Resources
Defense Council.

“The bottom line is, this means much higher prices for consumers – for
residents, for businesses,” Ms. Pillar said. “It sounds like we’re
exaggerating this but we’re not. This is a very alarming situation.”

Of the solutions, which include building utility-scale renewable and fossil
fuel power plants, the quickest fixes are not on the grid but behind the
meter. That is, using less electricity and building distributed generation
such as rooftop solar panels and battery storage, she said.

Even before the rise in electricity prices, the big shift in solar demand over
the past year has been the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes
tax credits ranging between 30% and 60% of the cost of a solar project.
The Pennsylvania Bright program is capitalizing on those incentives. As a
commercial owner of the panels, it can receive a payment for up to half of
the cost of a project – 30% base credit and an additional 10% each for
projects located in low-income disadvantaged communities and

environmental justice areas. Those additional benefits aren’t available to
residential solar owners.

That’s why the program is a lease, Ms. McCarthy said.
The panels are owned by the Capital Good Fund, which contracted with
four local solar firms to do installations and maintenance on the projects.

Joe Morinville, president of EIS Solar, the lead installer for Pennsylvania
Bright, has been skeptical of solar leasing programs in the past. He worried
about homeowners signing up for high interest financing and the “terrible
customer service” that some have experienced when they lease.

Mr. Morinville said he vetted the Pennsylvania Bright program and liked
that it was run by a non-profit and didn’t charge for financing.

“It’s a much better situation,” he said. “It’s designed to enable homes with
under $100,000 in income, which is great, because it’s the whole working
class.”

To offset the electricity used by the average Pittsburgh home would require
a solar panel system that would cost between $25,000 and $35,000, Mr.
Morinville said. Typically, residential customers make their money back in
energy savings within four to five years, he said.

“It’s a pretty good investment if you’re going to be in your house a long
time.”

But not everyone has the upfront money – about half of residential
installation is financed, Mr. Morinville estimated – and higher interest
rates complicate the economics for many would-be residential customers,
he said.

In fact, over the past several years, EIS’s residential volume was down
about 50%, he said.

The Inflation Reduction Act has changed the calculus, he said.

The Pennsylvania Bright program is also funded with grants of $500,000
from The Heinz Endowments, $500,000 from the Henry L. Hillman
Foundation, and a $150,000 impact loan from The Pittsburgh Foundation,
among others sources.