The Impact of
Solarize Campaigns
on the
Cost of Going Solar

Solarize campaigns bring together groups of potential solar customers through widespread outreach and education-- helping customers choose solar companies that are offering competitive, transparent pricing, and therefore making solar energy more affordable. In addition to group purchasing, streamlined permitting and financing may decrease the costs to consumers to install solar technology, especially in underserved, lower income communities.

In 2015, communities across New York launched more than 30 Solarize campaigns with support from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Hundreds of households and businesses are going solar as a result. Building on this success, the second round of Solarize campaigns launched spring 2016.

The purpose of this map is to assist NYSERDA in identifying the financial impact of group purchasing for residential solar energy systems in New York State and areas of opportunity for future Solarize Campaigns.

For more information about group solar purchasing campaigns, please visit NYSERDA's website .

Select Map Layers:

2015 Solarize Campaigns
PACE Financing ?
Unified Solar Permitting ?
Low/Moderate Income Areas ?
Dollar Per Watt ($/W) ?

Type of Solar Ownership:

Direct Purchase

When the customer purchases the system outright.

Lease

When a homeowner enters into a service contract to pay scheduled, pre-determined payments to a solar leasing company, which installs and owns the solar system on the homeowner's property. The homeowner consumes whatever electricity the leased solar system produces. If the system provides excess electricity to the grid, the homeowner may get credit for that generation from the electrical utility.

Power Purchase Agreement (PPA)

When a homeowner contracts with a project developer that installs, owns, and operates a solar system on the homeowner's site and agrees to provide all of the electricity produced by the system to the homeowner at a fixed per-kilowatt-hour rate, typically competitive with the homeowner's electric utility rate.

About this Map >>

This map was created by Jansyn Thaw for NYSERDA's NY-Sun team. Its purpose is to exemplify how interactive maps can be used for analysing and displaying program results.

Sources >>

In addition to data I received directly from NYSERDA, I used the following data sets:

Methodology >>

After cleaning and organizing the data sets, I geocoded my data using QGIS and GPS Visualizer and joined it to county and municipal-level polygons. I uploaded those shapefiles to CartoDB, where I styled the data and created infowindows and legends.

I built this webpage (hosted in a GitHub repository) using HTML, CSS, and jQuery. I used SQL to link data from my CartoDB visualization to the various checkbox and dropdown options. I also used Bootstrap, Google Fonts, and a CartoDB publishing template I found on GitHub.