Solar for All awards are out. Now what?

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of August 2022 created a variety of clean energy incentives and programs, including the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Solar for All is one of three programs under GGRF, which allocates $7 billion of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants for solar projects designed to provide low-income and disadvantaged communities with energy cost savings and other related benefits.

Now that the EPA has announced all Solar for All awards, recipients and potential beneficiaries are asking – what’s next? An initial step for many recipients, such as Community Development Financing Institutions (CDFIs) and states, is standing up their program and issuing subawards to organizations who can help get funds to beneficiaries efficiently. There are many questions Solar for All recipients (awardees) should be asking potential subawardees to collect the qualifying information to ensure dollars are effectively deployed.

Key questions Solar for All recipients should ask potential subawardees

1. What are your organizational strengths and weaknesses? Does the subawardee have internal energy expertise to help evaluate potential solar and storage projects? Does their staff have sufficient time to devote to developing and executing this program? Do they have strong record keeping and other processes to ensure compliance with the daunting (and evolving) list of EPA rules, compliance and reporting requirements? Are they located in a part of the U.S. where solar will be harder or easier from a technical, economic and policy perspective?
2. Does your organization have a critical mass of eligible beneficiaries with a clear need? Subawardees must identify residents who would clearly benefit from solar or solar plus storage and provide proof of their program eligibility, such as residing in a low-income and disadvantaged community. Subawardees can also qualify by living on a tribal reservation or through participation in federal assistance programs, such as SNAP.
3. Does your organization feel confident identifying mature projects? For example, if the project is a residential solar portfolio, the subawardee must thoroughly survey the targeted homes to ensure roofs and electrical panels are solar-ready. If it is a community solar project, the subawardee must identify a feasible site near viable interconnection. Other important questions are: Is the project located within a state and utility service area with favorable or unfavorable community solar and net metering rules? Will the project meet all EPA requirements such as delivering at least 20% energy cost savings to the beneficiaries? Is the project compliant with federal procurement requirements such as Davis Bacon?
4. Who will build the project? Many beneficiaries that Solar for All is intended to help are in remote locations where the solar industry is not robust. Therefore, it can be challenging to find qualified and available vendors to build the project, especially given the small size of most Solar for All projects. EPA also encourages awardees to use disadvantaged companies to build the projects, such as Native-owned, women-owned, and minority-owned small businesses. Though qualified solar vendors in these categories exist, there are few of them and they may not be able to deploy to the often-remote locations where Solar for All projects would be located.
5. How can your organization encourage workforce development? Related to the above challenge is building vendor capabilities. A key Solar for All program focus is to award projects which have benefits such as employing low-income workers and developing the capabilities of disadvantaged businesses who seek to build solar and energy storage projects. While there are workforce development organizations and academic institutions which train solar installers, there are fairly few of them and they are not distributed broadly across the U.S. If local assistance is not available, subawardees may need to get creative to provide this development themselves.

One more question… where to go from here?

Getting answers from subawardees and meeting program requirements may seem daunting. But like climbing a mountain, awardees and subawardees can attack the challenge one step at a time.

There are 3 actions to take today:

1. Create an analytical tool which includes all critical questions and a rigorous scoring methodology to evaluate the answers needed to identify strong subawardees and mature projects. The tool must be careful not to weed out too many subawardees too soon, while providing an effective first filter to help narrow the field to a manageable subset of qualified organizations.
2. Define what level of technical assistance support will be available. Is your program focused just on funding projects which meet all of your program criteria, or will it make significant technical assistance available to subawardees who need help?
3. Develop a list of potential vendors to build the project who can collaborate with you on project design and ensure that the project meets goals, such as strong workforce development.

Get started

While embarking on the Solar for All journey, recipients and subawardees don’t have to do it alone. Get started with Baker Tilly Solar for All specialists who provide technical capabilities and resources to guide the way. Learn how your organization can benefit from this transformative approach and take the first step towards a greener, more sustainable future. We are here to help.