First D.C. Community Solar Project Completed

In December, New Partners Community Solar Corporation cut the ribbon on the first community solar project in Washington, D.C. The Project consists of the installation of approximately 182 Kilowatts of solar photovoltaic electricity generation equipment on the rooftops of three commercial office buildings owned by Brookfield Office Properties.

Watch the project in action, here!

The project was funded by a $360,000 loan from National Housing Trust Community Development Fund (NHTCDF), with support from the MacArthur and Wells Fargo Foundations. The beneficiaries of this first New Partner Community Solar Project will be the 61 families of Copeland Manor Cooperative, an NHT-Enterprise-owned property in Southwest Washington, D.C. Each family will receive $240 per year in free electricity, which equates to a total benefit of $14,640 for the Cooperative.

Community Solar projects are especially meaningful to rental housing providers like NHT-Enterprise because they enable renters that do not own their rooftops to receive power from solar installations located in different areas of a city. More specifically, groups can install solar in one location in Washington, D.C. and push that power onto the electric grid, which generates credits that the utility can virtually allocate onto the utility bills of residents anywhere in the City.

New Partners Community Solar Corporation is managed by the law firm Nixon Peabody to take advantage of good rooftops on office buildings across Washington D.C. to provide discounted power to low-income residents.