Landowner, Industrial Property Owner, & Municipality Guide To Hosting A Community Solar Farm in 2025
Landowner, Industrial Property Owner, & Municipality Guide To Hosting A Community Solar Farm in 2025
How to host a community solar farm on your land:
Community Solar is a policy that was first signed into law in Massachusetts under the 2008 Governor Patrick and President Obama Administration, and has since swept the nation with over 6.5 Gigawatts installed to date, allowing states and electric utilities to adopt, participate, and further advance Net Metering and Community Solar Net Energy Billing programs in their respective regions. Community Solar projects are funded majorly by federal and local renewable energy incentives and rebates, are financed by private-sector and institutional investors, and developed by community-scale solar developers, built by solar construction companies (EPC’S), and are ultimately owned and operated by independent power producers and asset owners (IPP’s) who operate and own fleets of community solar farms across community solar markets as a portfolio of renewable energy assets. Community Solar farms are generally sized between 2 - 5 MW, can be found on 20 - 50 acre land parcels that are either greenfields or brownfields, and can locally distribute clean solar energy throughout the local utility distribution network to any energy consumer that enrolls into community solar.
Step 1: Engage a Community Solar Developer
If a community solar developer is interested in developing a solar farm on your land, chances are you’ve already received multiple offers, letters of interest, or even in-person visits. Acquiring a site for solar farm development is known as site acquisition, where a developer believes that if they secure site control at your parcel and engage in a diligence period of engineering studies with your local utility company, they’ll be able to de-risk your site enough to become a viable solar farm host candidate for a community solar project.
If you have not yet received an offer or a letter of interest, your land may still be eligible to host a community solar farm. Developers tend to start with the “low hanging fruit,” or sites that are closest to a substation, have the most available flatland in-line with the local interconnection capacity, and existing 3-phase power lines. Developers are not always exhaustive in their site acquisition efforts, and that is why in some cases, your land may be overlooked and actually have the best shot of project success over your neighbors. Engaging with a local and experienced community solar developer with a history of successfully acquiring sites, developing, building, owning and operating community solar projects is the key to ensure your land gets the best shot at becoming a viable solar farm host candidate.
Community Solar sites are predominantly on greenfields, which is typically also prime farmland. One way for developers and landowners to combat developing renewable energy infrastructure on farmland is to search for “diamonds in the rough”, or smaller sites such as brownfields, which are landfills or other underutilized parcels of land across a county that can be converted to solar farm sites, and become a brightfield. Another way developers and landowners can combat the utilization of farmland for community solar is integrate advanced high energy density racking technology to increase the project size on a smaller portion of land, which can help rapidly increase the deployment of community solar farms by shifting the focus of community solar on smaller portions of land.
Step 2: Execute a Community Solar Farm Hosting Agreement
Once you’ve engaged with a community solar developer that has taken interest in your land, it’s time to execute a site hosting agreement. Landowners should expect to initially begin with a short-term non-binding exclusive agreement, or a short-term binding exclusive agreement depending on the local utility’s requirements for the first 90 - 120 days, allowing the developer to secure site control and conduct initial diligence with the local utility on the feasibility of interconnecting a community solar project at their site, and return back with confidence to execute a long-term binding agreement that allows for further diligence until a commencement date is reached where the community solar project has been fully de-risked and ready for construction.
Step 3: Option Period Payments, Legal Fees and Lease Payments
Landowners should be aware of the industry standards and market rates in their state and region, and what their negotiating rights are. The best way to earn this knowledge is by working with a transparent and reputable community solar developer that is experienced in your market, and can site valid reasoning as to why you are receiving the offer presented to you.
For example, there is typically a 2-5 year development period across Illinois as a standard to achieve the commencement and construction milestone. This period varies depending on the local utility’s timeline to review the queue of projects being submitted for interconnection studies, and the capabilities of the community solar developer to identify sites that can be interconnected in substations that have a relatively low queue of projects.
When a developer finds a site that can be reported back as higher in the queue, the developer may be incentivized to provide a more aggressive lease payment offer.
If a developer finds a site that is feasible from an engineering standpoint but is further back in the queue, the lease payment offer may be within market-rate, but option payments may be more aggressive to keep the landowner incentivized to remain in the queue with the developer throughout the option periods.
Where does Clean Earth Renewables provide value with Landowners & Developers to advance Illinois Community Solar goals?
Clean Earth Renewables offers site acquisition solutions to landowners and developers, by connecting suitable landowners and their parcels to experienced and reputable developers to support a seamless site acquisition, development, construction experience for landowners concerned about handing their most valuable asset to trusted and experienced developers who are as passionate about partnering with the right landowner for their portfolio requirements. To learn how to work with Clean Earth Renewables to identify if a land parcel is feasible for community solar, email our Development Team at [email protected], with the Subject Title: Land Feasibility Request for a [Utility Company] Community Solar Project in [County Name] County, with the site address and your contact information.
How to host a community solar farm on your commercial or industrial rooftop:
As land for community solar projects across Illinois continues to become more constrained, developers are looking for competitive ways to develop projects that can combat these constraints and meet the renewable energy infrastructure needs of each host community.
Community solar projects can be developed and constructed on large industrial and commercial rooftops and parking lots, requiring a roof or parking lot space of 200,000 - 1,000,000 square feet. These types of properties can be strategically found in high-density industrial parks, commercial plazas, or even office parks and vacant parking lots.
These projects can bring rooftop or parking lot revenue to the REI, while supporting the sustainability and cost savings efforts of the REI’s commercial and industrial tenants.
Clean Earth Renewables development team actively identifies eligible rooftops and parking lots for Community Solar projects across ComEd and Ameren service regions, with over 50 MW of community solar project sites acquired to to date.
The community solar farms produce millions of kWh annually, allowing local residential renters, homeowners, small businesses, enterprise-level organizations or industrial facilities, and even municipalities to integrate clean energy digitally through their local Community Solar Net Energy Billing program. Small subscribers have minimal-to-no enrollment requirements, and can save up to 15+%, depending on their eligibility as a low-income homeowner or renter, and the state in which they live. Large or investment-grade businesses can subscribe as an anchor tenant for the long-term, supporting REI and C&I Tenant’s long-term sustainability and clean energy savings goals through Community Solar.
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For development inquiries, send an email to: [email protected]