National Grid to Advance Solar Program for 160,000 Low-Income Customers in New York

The New York State Public Service Commission on Jan. 20 sanctioned the first stage of an expanded solar-for-all program, or E-SFA, which will benefit National Grid’s low-income electric customers. Customers already registered in the utility’s energy affordability program will be automatically enrolled in the new program, resulting in electricity bill savings of $5 per month. National Grid would aggregate bill credits from community distributed generation projects and distribute them evenly among the program participants. About 160,000 customers are expected to receive benefits from this new program.

The program will help to achieve the criterion of imparting at least 35 percent of clean energy programs benefits to underprivileged communities under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act that came into existence in 2019. The act requires the state to develop 6 gigawatts of distributed solar projects by 2025 and to generate 70 percent of the electricity requirement from clean energy sources by 2030. The PSC sanctioned $573 million for distributed solar projects in 2020, out of which $200 million were directed to benefit low-to-moderate-income group customers for affordable housing and environmental justice to underprivileged communities.

In April 2021, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and National Grid filed a joint petition with the commission seeking approval of the E-SFA program. Although community distributed generation projects provide an opportunity for all customers to receive the benefits of solar, including those without access to rooftop solar, participation by low- and moderate-income participation is limited. The commission also mentioned that the participation from the low-to-moderate income group remains low and fewer than six percent of National Grid’s customers enrolled in community solar are customers from the energy affordability program.

The latest order will help increase the participation of low-to-moderate-income customers in the solar program, and also leverage previously approved resources to ensure sufficient community solar participation in the E-SFA program, toward providing bill credit savings for low-income participants.