2022
GENERATING COST SAVINGS THROUGH LOCAL CLEAN ENERGY
As a Public Benefit Corporation and Certified B Corp, we see it as both our duty and privilege to use our position as a business to generate a positive impact on the people and communities we serve. That's what life is about- people, not businesses... right? Maybe the fossil fuel industry just didn't get the memo. Well, this impact report is here to shine a light on our efforts to create an energy future where we do just that- put people first. Thanks to community solar, we can help to provide people with access to solar energy savings and an easy way to take climate action within their community.
Company
Neighborhood Sun is on a mission to make clean, affordable, and locally-generated energy accessible to ALL.
Social Impact
We help households and organizations save money and support clean energy by connecting them to the lowest-cost retail energy source: community solar. This new state-supported program allows anyone who pays an electricity bill to save money by subscribing to receive a share of the discounted renewable energy generated by a nearby community solar farm. That means no costs, installations, or homeownership requirements for the subscriber!
By connecting subscribers to local solar projects in their community and managing the acquisition through our proprietary and fully customizable SunEngine™ community solar platform, Neighborhood Sun is able to empower communities with the tools they need to take back their power and directly benefit from the clean energy transition. Together, we're building a solar community-- not just a business.
Sustainable Development Goals
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Letter from Our C.E.O.
To Our Solar Community
Though my journey as a climate advocate started back in 2000, it wasn’t until I founded Neighborhood Sun in 2016 that I was able to help address the intersection of climate change and energy equity. Lower-income households typically contribute the least to climate change but are impacted disproportionately by its harmful economic and health effects. Transitioning to clean energy is an opportunity to democratize our energy system and make sure it’s helping communities instead of harming them. That’s where community solar comes in and why it’s been our single focus for the past seven years.
Thanks to accessible clean energy solutions like community solar, it’s now an option for all utility customers to benefit from solar energy through a simple subscription format, not just the households who are eligible for rooftop panels. Despite seeing electricity costs rising across the country (in some cases more than 60%) leave more than one in six U.S. families behind on their utility bills this past year, we were able to provide discounts to residents and businesses on standard utility rates, leading to over $1.5 Million in savings on electricity bills for households and businesses of all income levels. From rural households to apartment renters and affordable housing residents, we worked to make sure everyone is included in this clean energy transition, earning us the Department of Energy’s 2022 Inclusive Solar Outreach Award.
As we look to the future, we are excited to continue exploring additional green energy services and products that will help us better serve the needs of our growing solar community as we find new ways to improve accessibility for lower-income subscribers. We’re proud of what we have accomplished as you’ll see in this year’s impact report, but we still have a long way to go, as a business and as a country. We look forward to a year of continued growth and impact, working with our broad community of stakeholders to make the world a cleaner, greener, and more equitable place.
Gary Skulnik, Founder and CEO
Annual Highlights
Customers
Environment
Community
Goals
We’ve come a long way from where we started as 3 people in a room dreaming of the future of community solar, but we still have a lot to learn. One of our values is to “fail forward” because we are a company that experiments and is willing to try new approaches without a stack full of market research telling us what to do. We’ll make mistakes and certainly are not perfect, but we’re always willing to learn and listen to our community. We’re entrepreneurial and bold because we know that we’ve got a lot of work to do and time is running short. It’s better to learn from your failures than to never try something different.
As such, our goals for 2023 include:
- Undergo recertification by B Lab as a B Corp for the second time
- Double our MW under management
- Expand into new states adopting community solar policy
- Revamp our Customer Advocacy Board and Neighbor Benefit Fund to better support our subscribers
