The U.S. Department of Energy defines community solar as any solar project or purchasing program, within a geographic area, in which the benefits of a solar project flow to multiple customers such as individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and other groups. Community solar can be a great option for people who are unable to install solar panels on their roofs because they don’t own their homes, have insufficient solar resources or roof conditions to support a rooftop photovoltaic (PV) system due to shading, roof size, or other factors, or for financial/other reasons. Read more about community solar here.

A community solar farm is a farm of solar panels owned and operated by a solar developer. For the UMB employee benefit, this developer is CleanChoice Energy. The energy that is generated by this farm flows to the smart grid and becomes part of the overall energy supply. In our case, the solar energy becomes part of the energy delivered by BGE to homes and businesses in the area.

For community solar, the electricity generated at a big solar farm is fed directly into the local electricity grid. For third-party supplier contracts, the vendor purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) on your behalf to re-define the electricity as “renewable.” RECs can come from various fuel sources, including trash incinerators and burning wood. Third-party supplier contracts through the Customer Choice program often utilize fluctuating rates, where a customer may get a better rate than the BGE base price initially, but the rate goes up over time throughout the term of the contract, ultimately making it a more expensive option than the BGE rate (also known as an escalator). Your community solar benefit will always be 10% off the current BGE rate for the length of the contract term; there are no escalators. Read more about the differences between these two programs here.

Community solar is a pilot program that is run by the State of Maryland and the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC), the entity that regulates public utilities. Through this program, the PSC reviews and accepts applications for “subscriber organizations” such as Neighborhood Sun and ensures the regulations that passed regarding community solar are followed. These regulations include consumer protections.

The benefit is a guaranteed 10% discount on the base rate for the electricity portion of your BGE bill. Please note that if you receive both electricity and gas services through BGE, this benefit is only for the electricity portion. This benefit lasts for 20 years.

Additionally, if you signed up on or before August 15, 2022, you should have received a $50 Visa gift card from Utility Advisor. Please see below for an example of what the email notification with the gift card code looks like.

Regular full- or part-time (50 percent FTE or more) faculty or staff employees and postdoctoral researchers of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) who live within the BGE service area are eligible.

This benefit is not available to the following parties:

• Part-time employees with less than 50 percent FTE
• Contractual employees
• Employees who are not in good standing
• University of Maryland Medical Center employees
• UMB undergraduate and graduate students

This community solar benefit is available to both homeowners and renters. There is no minimum credit score requirement to participate.

UMB employees will be assigned shares of various solar farms throughout the BGE service area, including:

• In Anne Arundel County
  • Checkerspot - 5963 Franklin Gibson Rd, Tracys Landing, MD 20779
  • Patuxent - 4913 Sands Rd, Lothian, MD 20711
  • Bathian - 605 Bayard Rd, Lothian, MD 20711
• In Baltimore County
  • Sassafras - 632 Freeland Rd, Freeland, MD 21053
  • Trillium - 1139 Monkton Rd, Monkton, MD 21111

A community solar subscription does not require a change in electricity suppliers. Your electricity will still be delivered to your residence by BGE. Solar credits are applied to your utility bill without any interruption of service.

Yes, participants will receive two monthly bills – one from Neighborhood Sun and one from BGE. The Neighborhood Sun bill is based on the amount of energy your share of the solar farm produced that month. On your BGE bill, you will see these solar credits from Neighborhood Sun applied, reducing your utility charges. 

Your subscription will always be 10% less than the value of the bill credits you receive. Bill credits are applicable to the entire BGE bill including: delivery, generation, transmission, applicable taxes, and other fees. The value of these bill credits may increase or decrease over the term of the agreement which also affects the subscription price. As of July 13, 2022, the subscription price is 10.79 cents/kWh, compared to BGE's estimated price of 11.99 cents/kWh. This equals an 10% savings of 1.2 cents/kWh.

When you sign up, historical usage requests are sent to BGE. Looking at a full 12 months of usage, Neighborhood Sun is able to determine the size of your share to account for changes in usage throughout the year.

The solar credits generated by your local community solar farm may not match up perfectly month-to-month due to a billing lag of up to 90 days (this is why your community solar company asks for 90-days notice for terminating your contract).

Compare a community solar bill to a BGE bill from 3 months prior. You'll notice the invoice period (which is when the solar farm produced energy for your credits) for community solar and the billing period for BGE are an approximate match but the statement and issue dates are off by a couple of months. You'll see that the credits applied are equal on both statements, even though the BGE bill was from April and the community solar provider's bill was from June. Finally, you'll see you were charged 10% less on your community solar bill than the credit that was applied to your BGE bill.

You can view a PDF example with highlighted information here: Community Solar and BGE Billing Example

Neighborhood Sun will inform BGE about your new community solar subscription.

It should take about two billing cycles to start receiving the solar credits.

As a current participant in the program, you may have noticed that your solar farm subscription has shifted from CleanChoice Energy to Neighborhood Sun. There is no change to your community solar contract or subscription - you will simply be paying your monthly bills to Neighborhood Sun instead of CleanChoice Energy moving forward.

If you move to another residence within the BGE zone, you will keep this benefit for your new residence. If you move outside of the BGE zone, you will have to terminate the agreement in accordance with the terms and conditions in the contract in order to avoid a termination fee (must give 90 days' notice). 

Even if you leave the university, if you still live within the BGE zone, your community solar benefit will continue until the end of the agreement you signed with Neighborhood Sun. Before you leave the university, be sure to update the email address associated with your Neighborhood Sun account to a non-UMB email so that you do not lose access.

Learn about our three renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) through the University System of Maryland (USM) on our website.