New Haven Community Solar
PROJECT INITIATION AND DEVELOPMENT | FUNDRAISING | CURRICULUM BUILDING | PARTNERSHIP MANAGEMENT
2017 | 2018 | 2019
When I was approached by Yale School of the Environment classmates looking for an opportunity to demonstrate crowdfunded equity investment for small-scale solar, I was struck with the idea of the Jim Vlock First Year Building Project as being the perfect testbed. As the Yale School of Architecture’s annual design-build project, the Jim Vlock Buildng Project is a long standing tradition that offers students hands on construction experience and the chance build concrete infrastructure in service of local communities. New Haven Community Solar built on this tradition two years running.
The project benefits were threefold.
First, Columbus House, the Building Project’s non-profit partner, was supplied with discounted electricity. Columbus House serves people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless by providing housing and fostering personal growth and independence. With a large portfolio of shelters and homes, saving money with solar gave Columbus House more freedom to focus directly on its mission.
Secondly, students were given the opportunity to engage in an important and growing field in architecture and development—distributed solar energy. At the time of the project, the California Building Standards Commission had recently signed off on the residential solar mandate—in which all new homes in California must incorporate solar power starting in 2020. This is likely to be only the first of such mandates as the building industry begins to tackle its climate impacts.1 Through this project, students were able to practice solar design and interact with local environmental and design practitioners, building skills and a knowledge base increasingly critical and relevant to practice.
Finally, New Haven Community Solar democratizes solar access, giving city residents the ability to both build and own small-scale clean energy projects. By creating the opportunity to invest directly in local environmental and social works projects, NHCS sought to put the power of change into the hands of our community. The model used crowdfunded investment as opposed to donations to support truly community-owned projects, while making solar more affordable to a non-profit unable to capitalize on tax-credit savings.
In 2018, we designed, funded, and installed 9.24 kW of solar on the Building Project duplex. In 2019, we crowd-invested the capital needed to install an 11.24 kW array on a triplex. These projects create a predictable set of future cash flows for investors and provide Columbus House access to low-cost electricity.
Special thanks to the New Haven Community Solar co-founders, Franz Hochstrasser, Matt Moroney, and Kwasi Ansu; Erik Anderson; Dean Deborah Berke; Adam Hopfner; Sunlight Solar; and O’Riordan Migani Architects.
1 According to a 2019 UN Report, buildings and construction together account for 36% of global final energy use and 39% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions when upstream power generation is included.
$0.0950/kWh ( 58% savings from $0.2253/kWh market rate )
estimated $70,000 in cumulative energy savings
in collaboration with Isa Akerfeldt-Howard and Kate Fritz
$0.0900/kWh ( 60% savings from $0.2253/kWh market rate )
12,374 estimated first year pounds of CO2 saved
13.07 estimated first year pounds of SO2 saved
18.13 estimated first year pounds of NOX saved
1.0 equivalent acres of trees planted
14,844 equivalent miles of reduced driving
