New York State has started a program with National Grid and NYSEG, where you can save up to 10% on your electricity bill (including ‘supply’ and ‘delivery’), simply by signing up with a community solar farm. In essence, you get allocated a portion of a solar farm’s capacity, and the electricity generated (in kilowatt-hours) from that portion each month reduces your cost of that many kilowatt-hours of electricity by 5 or 10%.
Here is a video produced by the NY Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) describing the program in more detail:
Looking at these aspects to the program, this could be a classic ‘no brainer’ situation:
- There is no change to your electric service – you just get discounts on your monthly utility bill.
- Unlike rooftop solar, there’s no equipment to purchase / install / maintain / remove.
- You can cancel the subscription at any time.
- Community solar farms:
- create local jobs and support the local economy.
- improve the country’s energy independence.
- effectively reduce our local carbon footprint.
Community solar farms are made available to utility customers by community solar providers. Each provider works with 10’s to 100’s of solar farms — which are each built and operated by solar farm developers. In New York state, there are currently 17 community solar providers! Some are better than others, regarding the discount, current availability of solar farm slots, and other aspects. One important aspect is “Utility Consolidated Billing”. This means you won’t have a separate bill to pay to the solar provider; everything is shown right on your utility bill instead.
Here’s a table describing the 17 providers as of 8/3/2024 from the perspective of a National Grid customer in New York state:
| Provider | Discount | Utility Consolidated Billing? | Solar Farm Availability | Better Business Bureau Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ampion | 10% | Yes | today? | B |
| Arcadia | 5% | Yes | today | |
| ClearPath Energy | 10% | Yes | waitlist | |
| Common Energy | 10% | No | today? | |
| Dynamic Energy | ? | ? | waitlist? | |
| Meadow | 5% | Yes | today | N/A |
| Neighborhood Sun | 10% | Yes | waitlist | |
| Nexamp | 10% | No | today | |
| NOCO | 5% | No | waitlist? | |
| OYA Renewables | 10% | Yes? | waitlist | |
| Perch Energy | 10% | Yes | today? | A+ |
| PowerMarket | 10% | No? | today | |
| PureSky Community Solar | 10% | Yes | waitlist? | |
| Saranac Lake Solar | 10% | No? | no | |
| Solar Simplified | 10% | Yes | ? | |
| Solstice Power Technologies, LLC | 10% | No? | waitlist | |
| SunCommon | ? | ? | n/a in eastern NY |
This is such a great program, and I believe the 3 choices above (shown in bold with links) are excellent. Ampion and Perch both provide 10% discounts, and Perch also is currently providing a $75 gift card as a signup ‘bonus’. And Meadow has better availability of slots in their solar farms (though with a 5% discount).
So here is the ‘call to action’ — go ahead and sign up with one of these providers! It takes ~10 minutes to fill out the information, and then the process is set in motion — if they have availability, it can still take up to 90 days to get started, due to the ‘foot-dragging’ of the electric utilities in the process. However, don’t worry; as someone who has gone through the process, I can assure you that you’ll get there eventually! 🙂