The South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff’s Energy Office is pleased to announce it has joined the National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP).
As of May 27, 2020, nearly 150 organizations across the country have joined this partnership led by the US Department of Energy’s (USDOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office.
NCSP is a coalition of community solar stakeholders working to expand access to affordable community solar to every American household by 2025. Partners leverage peer networks and technical assistance resources to set goals and work to overcome persistent barriers to expanding community solar access to underserved communities. USDOE announced the program on Wednesday, September 25, 2019.
The three goals of the partnership are:
- Make community solar accessible to every US household
- Ensure community solar is affordable for every US household
- Enable communities to realize supplementary benefits and other value streams from community solar installations
To meet these goals, NCSP provides an array of national and local stakeholders — state, local, and tribal governments, utilities, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and others — the tools and information they need to design and implement successful community solar models. The partnership will provide these through three major activities:
- Network Infrastructure: Partners have access to an online community platform, virtual and in-person meetings, webinars and other tools to engage with USDOE staff and each other.
- Technical Assistance: Partners have access to technical assistance resources from USDOE, its National Laboratories, and independent third-party subject-matter experts for support on unique local challenges.
- Collaboration: Structured groups of partners, called collaboratives, form around specific goals to address common barriers to solar adoption by learning from each other and sharing resources.
More information about NCSP, including details about how to join the partnership, can be found on the USDOE website.