Community Solar programs can offer benefits to utility customers that will not or cannot install solar for themselves. This can be especially true for lower-income households that tend to pay a larger proportion of household income for energy than others.

As part of an American Rescue Plan Act project in 2022 with the NC Department of Environmental Quality, the NC Clean Energy Technology Center conducted research on community solar programs designed to benefit lower-income households. The Center developed models and tools for community solar best practices to increase benefits that can be shared between the utilities and customers to provide greater annual cost savings.