Small-scale solar saved Vermonters $79 million from 2014-19

December 5, 2020  |  By Emmett Gartner

Installers from SunCommon construct a solar canopy carport recently. Courtesy photo.

Your neighbor’s sleek new solar array isn’t just benefiting their energy bill, it’s lowering yours — and the rest of Vermont’s, too.

In fact, small-scale solar installations saved Vermonters $79 million in wholesale energy costs between 2014 and 2019, while New England as a whole saved a cool $1.1 billion. That’s according to a report released this week by Boston-based energy research and consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics. 

By extracting new data on local solar installations from ISO New England — the region’s independent utility operator — Synapse researchers extrapolated how residential solar affected the region’s entire grid over the five-year period. They concluded that when solar operates, its energy typically replaces demand from fossil fuel-fired power plants, thereby lowering total electricity costs.

Representatives from Synapse were joined by clean-energy advocates from several regional groups including Montpelier-based Renewable Energy Vermont for a Thursday press conference via video call.  

Solar’s benefits aren’t restricted to matters of the pocketbook, either. The firm’s report also covers public health and climate impacts of increased solar-energy production. 

“Over 99 percent of the time, the types of plants that solar is displacing are either natural gas, oil or coal fired power plants,” said Patrick Knight, lead author on the Synapse Economics report. 

By shifting grid energy demand from these power plants to solar, the emissions of harmful pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter — as well as the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide — are substantially reduced, the report finds. 

An estimated 4.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is equal to half of all of Vermont’s 2016 emissions, were avoided over this five-year period in New England due to solar’s contributions, according to the report.

Solar industry grows roots in Waterbury 

James Moore, co-president and founder of the Waterbury-based solar company SunCommon, is quick to highlight  this study’s revolutionary nature.

SunCommon Co-President and Founder James Moore. Courtesy photo.

“This is groundbreaking research based on new data that was released for the first time in 2020,” Moore said. “There’s been debate across the region about how valuable solar is, and this analysis puts that debate to bed.”

Moore has been involved with providing Vermonters solar power since 2011 when he and co-founder Duane Peterson launched SunCommon as a benefit corporation. Their decision to base the company in Waterbury was not coincidental. 

According to Moore, the pair were looking at offices between Montpelier and Burlington when Tropical Storm Irene hit, hitting Waterbury especially hard. 

“Looking back on it, it was kind of like: There are all these good locations, where can our decision do the most good? And we picked Waterbury,” Moore recalled in an interview after the Thursday news conference.

Their starting team of 16 employees has grown tenfold to 160, bringing jobs and new residents to the community. Over that same time period, SunCommon’s original service area in central Vermont has expanded to include the entire state and a large swath of New York’s Hudson Valley.

With Synapse’s report, Moore sees bright potential in rebounding from the state’s current pandemic economy.

“As we look forward to 2021,” Moore commented, “we get excited about solar being able to help rebuild our economy across New England, and this new analysis makes clear that we will save money and make our air healthier to breathe at the same time.”

The report also suggests that the overall value of solar is likely underestimated because utilities don’t tend to factor in its ripple economic effects. 

“What this report shows is that our utilities are not paying more than [solar is] worth, in fact, they’re getting a good deal,” Moore said. “Those numbers [from the report] exclude local economic benefits, local tax benefits, some grid benefits that weren't calculated, savings for customers that actually go solar, which helps the local economy. Those numbers aren’t even in the equation and it’s still a good deal.”

Moore noted that these are considerations that policymakers should weigh when determining future incentives for consumers who invest in solar generation technology.  “I think what we need to do is recognize the full value of distributed energy and what it brings to our communities across New England and here in Vermont, and make sure that we don’t get penny-wise and pound-foolish lowering compensation to Vermonters who are going solar,” he said. 

Links to the Synapse report, summary slides and state-specific findings can be found here. 

Emmett Gartner is a freelance journalist and recent University of Vermont graduate.