Why You Should Buy Clean Power — However You Can Get It

Time is not our friend when it comes to climate change. The value of lowering greenhouse gas emissions today is greater than doing it in five years because every molecule of carbon we emit between now and then will accumulate in the atmosphere. You, as an individual, can’t make your utility build or buy more solar power more quickly. But you can start generating carbon-free kilowatts at home in a matter of weeks. (For more on that, check out our guide to getting rooftop solar.)

There is a heated debate among clean energy experts about the value of rooftop solar in the climate fight. Heatmap contributor and Princeton professor Jesse Jenkins argues that because big utility-scale solar installations are so much cheaper to build, rooftop solar rarely does little more than crowd out these projects, making our future clean energy system more expensive.

But as Eric O’Shaughnessy, a renewable energy market research analyst, told me, we don’t have a central planner who can wave a wand and manifest the most cost effective system. And in the real world, economics isn't the only factor determining what we build. Although the U.S. is now building more renewable energy than it has in the past, and the cost is now on par with — if not lower than — new fossil fuel generation, the clean energy industry is battling serious headwinds. A stubborn trifecta of inflation, supply chain constraints, and high interest rates has slowed utility-scale development compared to what it might have looked like. Community opposition to clean energy projects has increased and will likely worsen as the least-controversial sites for development get used up. And we simply do not have enough power lines to accommodate new clean generation — solar and wind projects are waiting years to get approval to connect to the transmission system.

All of this is becoming a problem for our climate goals. A recent Rhodium Group report found that the pace of clean energy deployment has lagged projections of what programs under the Inflation Reduction Act could be achieving — projections that already fall short of how much we should be building to meet our emissions targets. Though some of the challenges may ease — for example, the Federal Reserve just cut interest rates, which had become a significant obstacle for clean energy deployment — others are likely to take longer to resolve.

Homeowners, by contrast, can avoid land-use conflicts and act comparatively swiftly. “This is a space that's not being used,” O’Shaughnessy said. “Most people don't ever go to their roof. There’s no site acquisition. You don’t have to worry about an endangered turtle.”

The immediate emissions benefits of installing solar really depend on where you live and how dirty your local grid is, among other factors. But the reason we still put rooftop solar in the number two slot is that it’s such a high leverage climate action in other ways. For example, having a solar array can help you afford future investments in other climate solutions like heat pumps and EVs, because it mitigates against electric bill increases. It can also reduce overall electricity demand in your neighborhood, which may help your utility avoid costly grid upgrades and keep rates lower in your area.

If you pair your solar array with a battery, you may be able to join a utility program that synchronizes thousands of these systems in your region to decrease strain on the grid, avoid blackouts, and preempt the need to deploy fossil fueled “peaker” plants in periods of especially high demand. Various estimates from the Department of Energy and private research firms have found that such “virtual power plants” have the potential to save billions of dollars over the next decade. These programs will typically pay you to participate, too.

Researchers have also found that rooftop solar is “contagious” — one new installation in a neighborhood can cascade into several. “If you install solar, you are going to go through a process that most people have not,” O’Shaughnessy told me. “In doing that, you are going up this learning curve, and all of that is something that you can share with your friends, neighbors, family after the fact.”

If you’re a renter, or if you aren’t able to get rooftop solar today for some other reason, subscribing to a community solar project is another way to help speed up solar deployment in your region and reap some of the benefits that homeowners have access to. Community solar arrays are usually small installations on warehouse roofs, parking lots, or beside highways. Subscribers sign up for a portion of the electricity produced, and receive credits on their electric bills the same way they would with a rooftop system. These projects aren’t available everywhere, though. Solar United Neighbors, who we consulted for our rooftop solar guide, has more background reading and a directory of projects you can subscribe to.

(A brief note on a third option: choosing a “green” retail electricity provider. This is a much more indirect way to support the energy transition, and experts are split on whether it’s worth doing at all. In theory, it sends a demand signal for renewables and helps new projects get built, but there’s no way to really know how far your money is going. Because the benefits are not guaranteed, we are not including this option in this package.)

Getting rooftop solar can be a big, confusing project, and our guide on the subject will walk you through everything you need to know to feel prepared to tackle it.