The Colorado Energy Office (CEO) recently implemented a multipronged strategy to reduce energy burden for low-income (LI) Colorado residents through the deployment of solar photovoltaics (PV). Because of these efforts, approximately 20 MW of PV will be deployed in Colorado by the end of 2019 specifically for low-income households. Relying on interviews with 10 subject-matter experts along with archival research, this report outlines the CEO strategy, including why the agency pursued the strategy, how it was carried out, and lessons learned during its implementation.The CEO strategy includes three major components:• Supporting LI community solar demonstration projects• Incorporating PV into its weatherization program • Promoting utility investment in LI PV programs.The CEO strategy was developed through careful analysis and with the purpose of reducing energy burden, or the proportion of household income spent on energy bills. Colorado's household energy consumption data indicated that approximately half of energy expenditures were associated with electricity and that these expenditures were expected to grow. CEO determined that given the cost decline in PV technology, LI customers could benefit from PV deployment, which can offset electricity expenses. However, low-income households have faced a variety of barriers to PV access, which has resulted in less deployment across the LI market segment. Between 2015 and 2017, CEO pursued federal, state, and ratepayer funding options to reduce those barriers and develop programs for both on-site and off-site PV to ensure broader access for LI households.The implementation of the strategy offers several key lessons learned. First, the community solar demonstration projects revealed that LI solar projects could offer meaningful electricity bill savings for subscribers. Second, CEO's successful first-of-its-kind integration of PV into its weatherization program demonstrates how a state can leverage federal funding to support rooftop PV deployment for LI customers. Third, CEO's successful efforts to promote in-state utility investment in LI PV programs shows how this partnership can significantly expand market impact.Though CEO's strategy is unique and tailored to the needs of Colorado, other states might learn from CEO's experiences when designing their own low-income programs. The report concludes with six primary steps a state might take when designing a comprehensive low-income solar strategy.Step 1: Analyze Energy Burden and PV Potential: The first step a state might take is evaluating LI energy burden by housing and fuel type, and then assessing PV technical and market potential for LI households.Step 2: Consider Financing Options: After determining PV is an effective measure to address LI objectives, policymakers may wish to evaluate all the potential funding options that could be used to support LI PV deployment. v This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at www.nrel.gov/publications.Step 3: Develop Program Design: If PV looks ...

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and thus does not consider important changes in renewable energy (RE) policy that need to be addressed in follow-on analysis.A renewable portfolio standard is a mandate requiring certain electricity retailers to provide a minimum specified share of their total electricity sales from qualifying renewable power generation. The draft legislation analyzed here exempts small electricity providers-those selling less than 4 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) per year-and allows up to 25% of the RPS total to be met through qualifying energy efficiency (EE) projects. Existing hydropower and municipal solid-waste generation resources do not qualify under the proposed RPS, but are deducted from retail electricity providers' retail sales to calculate their renewable energy compliance obligations. The RPS would allow affected electricity providers to use any combination of the following to achieve the target: 1) generate their own renewable energy, 2) purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs), or 3) pay an "alternative compliance payment" of 3 cents per kilowatt hour (an effective safety-valve on the price of RECs). Distributed generators, such as rooftop photovoltaic systems, would earn triple credits for every kilowatt hour produced. The proposed RPS ramps up in a series of steps from 4% in 2011 to 20% in 2021 and continues at that level through 2039, before "sunsetting" (i.e., returning to zero). The legislation aims to prevent preemption of, or interference with, existing state RPS mandates that meet or exceed the federal requirement.We used NREL's Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model to evaluate the impacts of the RPS requirements on the energy sector and considered design issues associated with renewable energy certificate (REC) trading markets. Preliminary findings include:• After removing the small-utility exemptions and assuming that the maximum 25% energy efficiency allowance is fully used, the 20% RPS has an effective renewable requirement equal to 12% of total U.S. retail sales in 2021. The assumption that the energy efficiency component of the target would be fully used before adding new renewable energy supply, due to its cost-effective nature, will be further evaluated in follow-on work.• The base case scenario estimates that qualifying renewable generators will provide about 9% of the national load in 2021, much of that due to existing state RPS mandates. Thus, the proposed national legislation would require about 3% more generation from qualifying renewables beyond the state RPS mandates by 2021. In this sense, the proposed legislation does not represent a significant stretch beyond existing state policy in aggregate, although ramp-up additions in years that transition from one RPS level to another can present challenges.• Based on the assumptions used in this analysis, wind power capacity expands to approximately 129 gigawatts (GW) in 2030 in the RPS scenario, up from about 117iii GW in the base case. Concentrating solar power (CSP) capacity remains virtually unchanged at 32 GW that year, while dis...

Support for this work was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office under the leadership of Odette Mucha and Elaine Ulrich. The authors are indebted to the interviewees for their willingness to participate in this project and offer their perspectives regarding the key policy design issues around community solar. The authors would also like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments that improved this report, including

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