New Financing Options for Solar+Storage in Low-Income Communities

Current clean energy financing models do not sufficiently serve low-income communities. As a result, solar+storage projects are vastly underrepresented in affordable housing and community facilities, meaning that low-income communities are unable to enjoy the benefits of clean, affordable and resilient power.

A new paper by Clean Energy Group describes emerging finance models to address the energy equity challenge and to level the financing playing field. The paper, “Owning the Benefits of Solar+Storage: New Ownership and Investment Models for Affordable Housing and Community Facilities,” explores additional ownership and financing options for solar+storage projects and low-income communities beyond direct ownership and conventional leasing models. It makes a simple point: there are ownership and financing strategies that can provide many of the economic and other benefits of direct ownership, while overcoming some of the risks and barriers that direct ownership may entail for many project developers.

In this webinar, report authors Lew Milford and Rob Sanders were joined by guest speakers from National Housing Trust and Urban Ingenuity to discuss ownership and finance models ranging from immediate direct ownership to third party ownership flips to C-PACE financing strategies.

Panelists:

• Lew Milford, President, Clean Energy Group
• Rob Sanders, Senior Finance Director, Clean Energy Group
• Jared Lang, Assistant Vice President – Sustainability, National Housing Trust
• Bracken Hendricks, President and CEO, Urban Ingenuity

This webinar was presented by Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Project. Learn more at www.resilient-power.org.

Event Materials:

• Owning the Benefits of Solar+Storage: New Ownership and Investment Models for Affordable Housing and Community Facilities