New Energy Exploitation and Application

Review

Review of Community Solar in the United States of America

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https://doi.org/10.54963/neea.v3i1.218
Aldarsi, E., & Singh, R. (2024). Review of Community Solar in the United States of America. New Energy Exploitation and Application, 3(1), 67–88. https://doi.org/10.54963/neea.v3i1.218
Volume 3 Issue 1 (2024): In Progress
Copyright (c) 2024 Eyad Aldarsi, Rajendra Singh
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New Energy Exploitation and Application (NEEA)  publishes accepted manuscripts under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Authors who submit their papers for publication by New Energy Exploitation and Application (NEEA) agree to have the CC BY 4.0 license applied to their work, and that anyone is allowed to reuse the article or part of it free of charge for any purpose, including commercial use. As long as the author and original source is properly cited, anyone may copy, redistribute, reuse and transform the content.

Authors

  • Eyad Aldarsi
    Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA
  • Rajendra Singh 1 Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA; 2 Department of Automotive Engineering, Clemson University, Greenville, SC 29607, USA

Community solar is a concept where a large number of entities (consumers, businesses, charitable foundations, investors, etc.) can participate with or without having 100% ownership of the solar hardware. The objective of this paper is to provide an in-depth review of community solar. Although we have kept the global picture in mind, the United States has been our focus. The authors have provided details of the overall role of photovoltaics and battery-based power networks in global electrical power generation. Based on published reviews and research papers, the authors have analyzed the operation of community solar, ownership models and business models used in community solar projects. Based on the published results, the authors found that community solar might grow exponentially. However, due to ultra-small scale power level, this concept has not played a significant role as compared to residential, commercial, industrial and utility-scale use of solar photovoltaics. For the growth of community solar, the authors have proposed a new concept where new constructions can provide large-scale use of community solar projects. The proposed concept is off-grid and can be implemented without the introduction of any new public policy. In conclusion, the proposed concept can play a major role in providing green electrical power for new loads that also include the charging of electrical vehicles.

Keywords:

community solar photovoltaics energy storage batteries standalone power system local power

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