Clean Energy Project Development for Low-Income Communities

From fall 2020 through 2021, the Carsey School Center for Impact Finance at University of New Hampshire has conducted interviews with 80 individuals, held two roundtable events with over 150 participants, facilitated five focus groups with 70 participants, trained 179 participants from 97 organizations in solar lending, and engaged in countless meetings and informal conversations with organizations working to bring clean energy projects to low-income and underserved communities. We’ve focused particularly on projects like community solar, and solar and efficiency projects for multifamily housing, homeowners, and small businesses. Through these experiences, the biggest takeaway we’ve learned is that scaling clean energy projects in these communities is not just a financing challenge.

To be sure, clean energy projects serving low-income communities do have significant needs for concessionary capital, especially in order to create the co-benefits that matter for these communities—like energy affordability, job creation, and climate resilience. There are also real needs to facilitate the flow of capital to low-income clean energy projects and open up access to financial markets for both debt and equity investment. Thankfully, we are also hearing about a surge of interest on the part of banks, corporations, and other impact investors to make these investments. We discuss those needs and opportunities in this white paper.