What is community solar?
Would you like to save money on your energy bills while sharing in the benefits of clean renewable energy? If so, local community solar is for you! Community solar is available in many states, including Minnesota, Illinois, and Colorado. The Hoosier Environmental Council is working in coalition with Hoosiers for Community Solar to bring community solar to Indiana.
Not everyone can access solar because they may rent rather than own, have a house not suitable for solar, or may not be able to afford the upfront costs. Community solar breaks down those barriers. Community solar projects are built by independent energy companies and residents living nearby can subscribe to them. Subscribers typically save 10%-15% on their energy bills. Businesses can subscribe as well to save money and make their businesses more environmentally friendly. Keep reading to learn more about community solar and why it is an important option for Hoosiers.
What are the benefits of community solar?
- It lowers your energy bills!
- It’s local and provides much needed clean energy close to where it’s needed most.
- It makes our grid more resilient and reliable.
- It lessens our reliance on fossil fuels, which improves Hoosier’s health and lessens the impacts of climate change.
- It gives Hoosiers a choice for their energy and brings the benefits of solar to low- and moderate-income communities.
- Locations can include warehouse rooftops, brownfields or sites polluted by industry, and small 5-10 acre tracts, helping farmers diversify their income.

Myth Busted
The Myth: Some people say community solar is a cost shift that increases rates for other ratepayers. That’s wrong.
The Truth: Community solar brings new investment to our grid by independent energy companies so there are no costs to utility rate payers. Federal tax incentives plus subscriber fees make this a profitable deal for these independent companies. When utilities make upgrades or add power generation, we all pay for it, plus a healthy utility profit margin. Community solar has several financial benefits, even for non-subscribers:
- It provides new energy onto the grid at no cost to utility customers.
- When upgrades need to be made to connect community solar projects, the developer pays for it, not utility rate payers. This actually reduces costs of needed upgrades to the local or distribution grid.
- It lessens the need for costly transmission upgrades that bring us electricity from as far away as Canada! Building more local power generation through community solar means fewer costly transmission grid upgrades are needed. Those come with a guaranteed profit margin for our monopoly utilities.
- Community solar subscribers still pay a “connection fee” to the utility. Even though their electricity usage is covered by community solar, they still pay to support the larger grid system.
Indiana has a power system operated by vertically integrated, monopoly, investor-owned utilities. That means companies like Duke Energy, AES, and NIPSCO control all aspects of providing our electricity. Utilities across the nation have fought against community solar because they see it as a threat to their market share and related profits. The truth is our 100 year old system of providing power through far away, centrally located, fossil fuel-based power plants isn’t going to meet Hoosier’s growing energy demands. We need local power in addition to clean renewable centralized power, battery storage, and other forms of clean continuous power. Community solar is an important part of the grid of the future. Let’s bring it to Indiana now!
Learn more in this op-ed by our Executive Director, Sam Carpenter, published in Indianapolis Capitol Chronicle: “No Coal for Christmas“
