Reducing Electric Bills in California Multifamily Affordable Housing with Solar+Storage

While many business across California are already cutting costs with solar PV and battery storage, the affordable housing sector has yet to realize the benefits that this innovative technology combination can provide. A new report has found that solar+storage can significantly reduce electric bills for California multifamily affordable housing property owners and renters, to virtually zero in some cases. These findings are particularly important in light of the passage of California’s Multifamily Affordable Housing Solar Roofs program, which provides up to $1 billion for the deployment of solar systems in affordable housing across the state, making it the largest program of its kind in the country.

The report, produced by California Housing Partnership, Center for Sustainable Energy and Clean Energy Group, reaches several groundbreaking conclusions:

• Under current utility rate tariffs, the combination of solar and storage technologies could virtually eliminate electric bills for some owners of affordable rental housing.
• The addition of storage technologies has the potential to nearly double stand-alone solar electricity bill savings at about a third of the cost of solar.
• The addition of battery storage to solar improves the economics of each property analyzed across all utility territories, reducing project payback by over three years in some cases.

In this webinar, presented by Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Project, report authors discuss their findings and the implications for California affordable housing and address questions from the audience.

Panelists:

• Lew Milford, President, Clean Energy Group
• Seth Mullendore, Project Manager, Clean Energy Group
• Wayne Waite, Policy Director, California Housing Partnership
• Sachu Constantine, Director of Policy, Center for Sustainable Energy
• Dr. Zach Ernst, Director of Analytics, Geli

The report, “Closing the California Clean Energy Divide: Reducing Electric Bills in Affordable Multifamily Rental Housing with Solar+Storage,” is available here.