HEC Solar For All

Yes. Solar for All funding is only for residential serving solar. See more details in the “How do we plan to do it” section.

We will be conducting our Solar for All program in Arkansas and Mississippi.

Building a market for solar that benefits everyone requires an all-in approach, and HEC intends to work with solar installers, homeowners, renters, housing providers, state and local governments, and utilities.

• Solar Installers

  HEC will use an federally-approved RFP process to identify solar installers that are able to achieve the 20% monthly utility savings target with high quality installations and customer service.

• Households

  For homeowners and renters, “Solar for All” will offer simple-to-use online tools, consumer education, and a network for contractors to streamline going solar and lowering energy bills.

• Housing Providers

  For housing providers, HEC will provide financial and technical assistance to help them zero in on the feasibility and financial viability of making the switch to solar.

• Government and Community Organizations

  For governments and community organizations, HEC can help achieve economic development goals by creating jobs, attracting new businesses and, of course, improving the financial health of households by reducing the energy burden.

• Utilities

  In general, HEC will engage with utilities and anticipates working proactively with utilities that are aligned with program goals. HEC can also help existing, utility-sponsored energy savings programs achieve greater impact.

  There are three types of utilities, investor-owned, cooperatives and municipal-owned. Even though all three types provide retail power services to customers, each type has a different business model and a different relationship to residential-serving solar.

  Investor-owned utilities like Entergy are focused on building utility-scale solar projects and opposing policies that enable broad adoption of the solar installations that EPA is funding with Solar for All. Existing energy efficiency programs and solar with attached battery storage are areas for win-wins.

  Cooperatives are member-run organizations and some are more open to working together, especially for energy efficiency, larger solar installs that function as community solar (for cooperatives that are not governed by Public Service Commission orders that block community solar) and financing of distributed energy resources like battery storage.

  Municipalities have a wide-range of sophistication based on staffing capacity. Buy-in from local leaders has the potential to result in favorable policies that enable Solar for All dollars to go further.

HEC has a highly qualified staff with extensive experience in community development, including training in renewable energy finance.

“Solar for All” requires a plan for taking advantage of tax credit financing, and HEC has a plan for addressing that challenge and ensuring that no one is left out of this unique financing opportunity. Low-income and disadvantaged communities may think that “Solar for All” sounds too good to be true. HEC has a strong connection to these communities, which enables it to reduce customer acquisition costs for partners and create a more hospitable environment for solar contractors in the state. HEC has a strong track record of meeting reporting deadlines for private, state, and federal grants.

As of 12, Jun 2024 EPA has not awarded funding.

EPA anticipates providing some “Solar for All” funds to HEC by September 2024. EPA may not greenlight deployment of funds to projects until after September 2024 when workplans revisions are approved.

Consumer Protection Notice
Solar for All program funding is not yet available. Residents should be aware of bad actors attempting to use this high-profile program to spread scam offers. Offers of “free solar” to low-income households because of this program—whether received via phone, email, text, advertisement or door-to-door marketing—are probably not legitimate.

Residential rooftop solar
This program will provide financial assistance to low-income households to install solar panels on their homes. The program will identify solar installers who promise to meet price, quality and customer service benchmarks, among others.

Multifamily solar
This program will provide funding for the installation of solar panels on multifamily affordable housing buildings. These projects will provide solar energy to landlords and to low-income tenants, who often have limited access to solar energy and could become homeowners faster by increasing their monthly savings via reduced energy costs.

Community solar
This program will provide funding for the development of community solar projects that will provide solar energy to low-income households who cannot install solar on their roofs. These projects are more challenging in the Deep South, but could be owned or sponsored by local organizations, such as churches, schools or community centers.

HEC proposed to use Solar for All funding for paid apprenticeships that provide an on-ramp from existing training programs to good-paying jobs with Solar Installers that participate in Solar for All. We also anticipating providing small business loans to the participating installers.

For the residential rooftop program, we anticipate leasing solar equipment to families for at least the first six years. The primary reason for leasing the solar equipment is to provide access to the tax credit. Another benefit of leasing is that the owner (lessor) of the panels will be responsible for repairing systems, including making warranty or insurance policy claims.