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Community solar
Solar for the two-thirds of households that can't put panels on a roof — renters, condo owners, and shaded lots. A shared array produces the power; your utility bill gets the credit.
The short version
A developer builds a mid-size solar farm and sells subscriptions. Your share's production is credited to your utility bill, and you pay the developer a rate discounted below the credit value — typically netting 5–15% savings on the covered electricity. No hardware, no installation, no capital. Availability is set by state policy; the DOE National Community Solar Partnership tracks programs by state, and DSIRE lists the enabling rules.
The product is a contract, so the fine print is the product: prefer a percentage discount over a fixed rate, short terms over multi-year lock-ins, free transfer within your utility territory, and clear credit timing. The full checklist is in our community solar guide.
The Solar Community Initiative legacy
This domain has history here. The earlier Geostellar ran neighborhood group-buy campaigns — including Solarize Cleveland — under its Solar Community Initiative, aggregating demand to cut install prices before subscription farms existed. The aggregation logic lives on in today's community solar; what the group-buy era taught us covers what carried over.