Measuring the Environmental Impacts of Community Solar

When you hear that a solar project “avoids thousands of pounds of carbon pollution,” it’s a fair question to ask: Where does that number come from?

The answer comes down to two things:

• How much electricity the project produces, and
• What kind of electricity it replaces on the grid

The first step: Measuring the electricity a solar project produces

Every completed community solar project is connected to the electric grid, a huge network that connects electricity from power plants to our homes and businesses.

Community solar projects are tracked using a device called a meter, which is a standard tool used across the solar industry. A meter records exactly how much electricity the system makes.

The electricity is usually measured in a unit called “kilowatt-hours”, or kWh.

Over the course of a year, a typical Solar Landscape project can generate enough electricity to power about 100 homes.

This step tells us how much clean electricity that each of our projects adds to the grid.

Step two: Understanding what solar is replacing

When a solar project produces electricity, that electricity is transferred onto the grid where it can power homes and business.

Since this clean energy is now available for people to use, it reduces the need to use power from other sources. Today, in most parts of our country, those other energy sources include fossil fuels like natural gas and coal – which pollute our environment.

So, the environmental benefit of solar comes from replacing electricity generated by fossil fuels with electricity that doesn’t create any pollution.

The third step: Measuring the pollution we avoided creating

The final step is to translate the pollution we save from entering the atmosphere into different ways that let us talk about our environmental impact. We use numbers from trusted groups like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do this.

These numbers tell us how much pollution is usually made when electricity is created.

Then we do a simple math problem:

How much electricity we make (kWh) × How much pollution is created per kWh
= How much pollution we keep out of the air!

In other words, we figure out how much pollution didn’t happen because we’re making – and using – clean, renewable energy that doesn’t put any emissions into our environment.

What this means in real life

The average American home uses about 10,500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity every year.

When that electricity comes from solar power instead of fossil fuels, it avoids a surprising amount of pollution.

According to the U.S. EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, producing that much electricity from solar instead of fossil fuels saves about 9,000 pounds of carbon pollution from going into our atmosphere each year.

That’s like saving pollution from:

• Burning about 800 gallons of gasoline or 7,800 pounds of coal
• Driving about 18,000 miles in a gasoline-powered car

In other words, every household powered by community solar makes a meaningful difference for our environment.

Now imagine hundreds of households participating in one project – and thousands more across the country. All of that collective action creates cleaner air, cleaner water, and a healthier planet Earth.

What the numbers mean (and don’t mean)

These numbers are based on averages, not precise amounts. The exact impact can change depending on where the solar project is and what kinds of other power plants are being used in the area at that time.

But the main idea is simple: every bit of solar energy we make means using less energy from polluting sources. And we can use trusted methods to estimate how much pollution we kept out of the air.

The power of participation

Community solar projects only work the way they’re designed when people sign up to participate, and every customer makes these projects possible. By choosing community solar, you’re supporting a safer environment by helping companies like Solar Landscape build more clean energy projects.

It’s a simple choice with a powerful impact.

And together, we’re are creating a clean energy future – one rooftop community solar project at a time.