A nonprofit is seeking to increase access to rooftop solar for lower and moderate-income households in Georgia through a program called Georgia BRIGHT, which stands for Building Renewables & Investing for Green, Healthy, Thriving Communities.
Capital Good Fund, the nonprofit running Georgia BRIGHT, is looking to install between 150 and 200 rooftop solar systems as part of its program’s pilot run.
Andy Posner, founder and CEO of Capital Good Fund, said it just made sense to do this in Georgia, where low-income residents suffer disproportionately from energy burden — the fraction of a household’s income that goes towards its energy bill.
“Georgia had multiple rate hikes last year, and there’s more coming this year,” Posner said. “The people that are most likely to benefit from solar are those that are low income — and yet, they are the least likely to [have access] to the technology, particularly in Georgia, which already makes it difficult for solar to pencil out economically.”
The Georgia BRIGHT program looks to alleviate some of these burdens by providing leasing with no upfront cost for low to moderate-income homes. This tackles one of the biggest issues in low-income households adopting solar power: the upfront cost of the system. Low to moderate-income homes are defined by Capital Good Fund as homes that make $100,000 or less per year.
“It’s a leasing program run by a nonprofit, which has never existed before,” Posner said.
Since Capital Good Fund owns the solar system in its entirety, it is able to lease the system to these homeowners, with the goal that the lease payment is less than what their utility bill would have been with the rooftop solar system. Homeowners are also able to opt for a battery to add resilience to their systems.
There’s no better time to launch programs like Georgia BRIGHT, Posner said, especially as millions in federal funding is trickling down to states via the landmark Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a landmark piece of legislation that set aside hundreds of billions in funding over the next decade for the clean energy transition.
Beyond the energy burden constraints, many residents feel, utilities like Georgia Power have been all but dismissive of net metering, which many champion as a model that would encourage rooftop solar adoption in Georgia. Instead, rooftop solar adopters are paid a fraction of what the energy produced is worth if the utility produced it, and only after their monthly bill is paid.
Capital Good Fund fund points to the fact that a 30 percent tax refund credit is non-refundable if you don’t have a tax liability, as well as low-income communities being more susceptible to power outages, as points where the nonprofit can come in and help bridge the gap. Ninety-five percent of Capital Good Fund’s clients are low-income, and 65 percent of them are people of color. Thus, the program seeks to ensure that these communities aren’t left behind in the clean energy transition.
A key function of the Capital Good Fund is leveraging its status as a nonprofit; the commercial tax credit, unlike the residential, is refundable to nonprofits via direct pay. This means Capital Good Fund will get a refund check when they file taxes, greatly reducing the cost of buying the solar systems that they can then lease out. Capital Good Fund also doesn’t keep the value of the credit but instead invests it back into the program to keep the lease price affordable.
Thirteen leases have already been signed since late September, and three systems are currently running. Posner is hoping that number will grow in this new year; however, achieving this will be just the beginning, according to Posner. Ultimately, Capital Good Fund is looking to use this as a launching pad for other similar measures on a larger scale.
“With that money, we and others will be able to do roughly 8,000 installations on low-income homes over the next five years,” Posner said.
He added that along with these installations will come new jobs for Georgians. Additionally, solar can act as a gateway to other emerging markets like heat pumps and electric vehicles. Capital Good Fund hopes to expand beyond solar, too, into spaces like energy efficiency and EV leasing in the future.
If you’re interested in inquiring about the Georgia BRIGHT program, more can be found on their website. Applications are still open for those who qualify.
Impact from solar will be much greater if energy consumption is first reduced with retrofits.