After a decade of leading Neighborhood Sun, the aggregator with the most experience in Maryland, I’m often asked for my thoughts on community solar in the state. In short, it’s one of the most exciting states for community solar in the country right now, and we’re thrilled so many new projects are being developed on our home turf. There are many things that make Maryland’s community solar market different, and we have experience navigating them all. Our brand trust and longstanding recognition have positioned us to lead the state, and those qualities make all the difference when it comes to acquisitions.
There are four major IOU’s in Maryland - Pepco, Potomac Edison/First Energy (PEFE), BGE, and Delmarva Power & Light (DPL). BGE is the largest in terms of population, but Pepco is also substantial. PEFE and DPL have the lowest-cost opportunities for land acquisition due to their relatively small populations. Neighborhood Sun knows this market like the back of our hand. It’s where we were founded and have spent a decade setting down our roots. We are going big on DPL acquisitions, so we are well-positioned to work on more portfolios there. It’s part of our overall Maryland strategy and we have a proven record of ensuring projects get filled and keeping customer churn low, including with LMI subscribers.
Maryland has moved from a pilot program to a permanent program, which is great for market growth and certainty. There remain some challenges around potential new net metering rules (NEM 2.0) and the question of how community solar credits will be valued. There’s a deadline of next summer to get into the program under the very generous NEM 1.0, so many developers are taking necessary steps to ensure they make it by then. An additional obstacle that many outside players may fail to consider is the Certificate of Necessity and Convenience (CPCN) process for projects of a certain size. There is currently a huge bottleneck preventing projects from getting through the process, but Neighborhood Sun is working directly with the Governor’s office to find solutions that will speed up that process.
Each market provides new opportunities and challenges for acquiring subscribers, and Maryland is no different. Neighborhood Sun is intimately familiar with the intricacies of Maryland’s demographics, and is the best-known aggregator in the state. Our Maryland community goes back 25 years. Our partners range from one of the largest universities in the state to small NGO’s and faith institutions across all utility territories. There isn’t any part of Maryland we haven’t worked in, and we’ve had a decade to perfect our messaging and outreach strategy. We have learned what message works best, and more importantly, we have an established network of solar advocates supporting referrals across the state. That’s how we acquire customers at scale and most importantly, customers who are extremely sticky. We haven’t seen a single competitor post a lower churn rate than us.
These are just high-level insights. If you want to get into the nitty gritty details together, reach out to me by email or schedule a call.
Gary Skulnik, Founder and CEO
