As prices of solar installations large and small have continued to plummet, market participants are diversifying ways of producing and distributing that energy. As a result, retail customers are increasingly able not only to consume energy, but to produce it as well. In so doing, they are also affecting the future development of both the renewable energy market, and the larger national grid system.

The rise of the ‘prosumer’ also has implications for other sectors (for example, the development of software to ensure secure transactions of solar credits and funds) as well as posing challenges for regulators struggling to balance energy innovation and democratization with a reliable grid for all.

Community Choice Energy/Aggregation (CCE/CCA)

Although the option of community choice aggregation must first be approved by state legislatures, it actually increases the control by municipalities (anywhere from a small town to county) over their energy, allowing them purchase energy and solicit bids according to their own community preferences.

While the first community choice aggregation bill was passed in Massachusetts in 1995, the movement arguably first gained steam when the municipality of Marin County in (where else?) California launched Marin Clean Energy in 2010. The initiative is an opt-out program offering 50-100% renewable energy to approximately 175,500 customers.

in 2014, Governor Cuomo granted the New York Public Service Commission authority to regulate the development of CCA, as an important part of the larger ‘Renewing the Energy Vision‘ (REV) puzzle. In 2015, Westchester County became the first New York municipality to roll-out community choice aggregation (its RFP closed in January 2016; you can learn more about it here).

Community Solar

A less formal, and solar-focused version of community choice aggregation, community solar allows shared investment by community members in solar arrays, and in some cases, crediting the energy generated on customers’ energy bills. Equally important, community solar allows the entry into the market of large groups previously unable to do so: non-homeowners, apartment dwellers, and those unable to afford solar panels

NYSERDA is spearheading the community solar in New York through its ‘NY-SUN’ initiative, providing fundraising and technical support to eligible groups; its Solarize Campaign website shows ten currently active projects in NYC alone (including Solarize Brooklyn CB6 and Solarize Brownsville).

Peer-to-Peer Transactions

From national and regional solar markets to your neighbor: solar energy is now looking to capitalize on the sharing economy with peer-to-peer trading of solar energy. And with recent successful tests of such trading, New York continues its efforts to wrest the mantle of renewable energy leader from California. The project, called ‘Brooklyn Microgrid‘ was created by the firm Lo3 Energy, and allowed homes in two neighborhoods generate solar power and sell it to other neighbors. “Blockchain“, a type of software that emerged through Bitcoin (and is unfortunately beyond the ability of this blogger to explain), and which is intended to allow secure peer-to-peer transactions of data.