Municipal Utility Collaborative

The Municipal Utility Collaborative (MUC) seeks to create or scale programs that expand affordable community solar access to low-income and other underserved communities.

In partnership with the American Public Power Association APPA), NCSP’s MUC concentrates on the following objectives:

• Program Design: Identify and implement best practices and lessons learned on customer engagement and outreach, including pre-qualification of income status and navigating the third-party support ecosystem (e.g. community solar subscription companies, developers, etc.)
• Financing: Demonstrate sustainable customer financing options, such as on-bill financing and monthly subscription products as well as subsidy options for low income residents
• Service Integration: Develop models to integrate community solar with other utility programs and technology offerings, for example with demand response, energy efficiency, weatherization, electric vehicle charging, utility rate assistance programs or other low-income programs
• Additional Customer Benefits: Assess and quantify supplementary benefits of community solar. For example, resiliency attributes to both the subscriber and the utility through the incorporation of battery energy storage systems (BESS) into community solar projects