Interested in going solar for your electricity? Maybe you just want to save money on your monthly utility bill?

A new program in New Jersey designed to make solar energy more accessible could soon help residents achieve both.

State regulators in January cleared the way for what’s know as “community solar” projects to come to cities and towns in New Jersey, likely in the coming year. Those projects will allow residents who can’t put solar panels on the roofs of their homes — because they can’t afford it, or their houses are shaded or facing the wrong direction, or they are renters — to sign up for a subscription to a shared solar installation elsewhere in the state.

Customers then receive a monthly credit for the power generated by the solar project toward their monthly utility bill. And in most cases, the cost of a subscription is less than the monthly credit, which translates into savings.

Learn more: Solar power without the roof panels: How community solar works

“They’re aiming to have people save about 10 percent,” Brandon Smithwood, policy director for the national advocacy group Coalition for Community Solar Access, said of community solar providers.

Many projects in New Jersey are expected to serve low- and moderate-income households and could offer even steeper discounts. Schools, colleges, local governments, hospitals, businesses, non-profits and multifamily buildings can also participate in the program as subscribers or act as host sites for solar farms.

But the savings those solar customers could see are likely to be paid for indirectly by other utility ratepayers. And disagreement remains over what new state subsidies, if any, should be put toward the program.

Aggressive clean energy goals

New Jersey will become at least the 19th state to allow homeowners and renters to tap into off-site solar farms, one consequence of a package of bills Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed into law last year.

That legislation got more attention for the estimated $300 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies it offered to the state’s nuclear industry, but it also put in place aggressive clean energy mandates requiring 50 percent of all electricity sold in the state to come from renewable sources by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050.

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Solar enthusiasts say community solar can play a relatively small but important role in reaching those goals, with up to 4.5 percent of the state’s electricity coming from such projects by 2030, according to a recent report by Vote Solar, an advocacy group based in California.

Anyone who gets electricity from one of the state’s four distribution companies — PSE&G, JCP&L, ACE and RECO — will be eligible to participate in a community solar project within their distributor’s service area.

Solar for more families

The new program aims to give many low- and moderate-income families access to solar energy for the first time. Although solar energy has boomed in popularity in New Jersey in the past few years, with more than 100,000 residential installations to date, many residents have been left out of that trend.

“For the most part, solar has been installed in suburban communities, traditionally with higher median incomes,” explained Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “Community solar really is an attempt to try to level that playing field.”

Residents and other entities cannot begin signing up for subscriptions just yet. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved the rules in January for an initial three-year pilot program, and it is now finalizing the application process for solar farm developers who want to participate.

Depending on when the board begins accepting applications, local planning boards could start receiving project proposals from developers within the year, with construction on new solar projects to begin shortly thereafter. Customers will be able to sign up for subscriptions around that time.

The program has a capacity limit of 75 megawatts the first year and at least 75 megawatts each of the next two, which is roughly enough to cover the electricity usage of 45,000 residential households, according to the BPU. Forty percent of the capacity must go toward projects with a majority of subscribers who are low- or moderate-income households.

Subscriptions can take several forms, including an ownership share in a community solar project or a pay-as-you-go, monthly subscription.

Costs for other customers

Ratepayers already subsidize the solar industry in New Jersey. The state, which mandates that a certain amount of its energy come from renewable sources, provides financial incentives for the installation of solar arrays. The cost is reflected in higher utility bills.

Those incentives have been widely criticized as too expensive for ratepayers, and the state is in the process of developing an alternative way to promote solar energy. Proponents of community solar are worried that uncertainty could scare off developers.

Despite concerns over cost, however, community solar projects will be eligible for incentives under the state's existing incentive program or its replacement.

In addition, developers and some environmental groups say the state should offer new subsidies for certain community solar projects. They want projects serving low- and moderate-income households to offer discounts as high as 50 percent. One option to achieve that is to tap a clean energy fund financed by a surcharge on utility bills.

“What we’ve found in other states is typically those customers need greater savings to be interested in participating in the program," said Smithwood, of the Coalition for Community Solar Access.

The program rules give the BPU wide latitude to offer such incentives. But Stefanie Brand, who serves as the state's advocate for ratepayers as the director of the state Division of Rate Counsel, has opposed giving developers what she calls "adders."

Brand said she is worried that the community solar program will prove too costly for non-participating ratepayers and may not be the best use of state resources.

“I have my doubt that this is a great turning point in our renewable energy development,” Brand said. “I think that it is not necessarily the most cost-effective way to get more renewable energy.”

But 75 megawatts of capacity is “starting small,” she said. “I’ll keep an open mind and see how the pilot turns out.”

Email: pugliese@northjersey.com