Community solar, end-to-end.
Cannon Community Solar handles every layer of a community solar project - origination and sales, EPC construction, long-term O&M, and subscriber management. Bring us a project, a parcel, or just an interest in subscribing. We cover the rest.
- Sales & development
- EPC construction
- O&M under CANOS
- Subscriber acquisition & billing
Or call a Community Solar lead: (888) 766-0260
What is community solar?
Solar energy, without the roof.
Community solar is a shared solar farm that delivers clean energy credits to your utility bill. Instead of installing panels on your home, you subscribe to a local solar project and receive bill credits that lower your electricity costs every month.
These projects range from a few hundred kilowatts to dozens of megawatts, built on unused land like fallow farmland or capped landfills. The power feeds into the local grid, and subscribers earn credits based on their share of the project's production.
No rooftop panels
Renters, condo owners, and anyone with a shaded roof can participate.
Lower electric bills
Most subscribers save 5–25% on their electricity supply charges.
No upfront cost
Subscription requires $0 down - you simply pay for the credits you receive.
Flexible terms
Cancel with 30–90 days notice. Move? Transfer your subscription to your new address.
How community solar works
- 1
A solar farm is built
Panels go up on local land - usually 5–50 acres near existing power lines. The project connects to your utility's grid.
- 2
You subscribe
Sign up as a subscriber - no credit check, no installation, no changes to your property. Your utility account is linked to the project.
- 3
Solar power flows to the grid
The farm generates clean electricity that feeds into the local distribution network, reducing fossil fuel use in your community.
- 4
Credits appear on your bill
Each month, your share of the project's output appears as a credit on your utility bill - lowering what you owe.
- 5
You pay less overall
Your credit value exceeds your subscription cost, leaving you with net savings every month - typically 5–25% off your supply charges.
Who benefits?
- Renters and apartment dwellers who can't install rooftop solar
- Homeowners with shaded roofs, HOA restrictions, or older roofs
- Small businesses looking to reduce overhead without capital expense
- Low- and moderate-income households in states with LMI carve-outs
- Landowners earning predictable lease income on underused acreage
- Local communities gaining clean energy, jobs, and tax revenue
Landowner opportunity
Turn your land into a long-term asset.
If you own 10 or more acres of flat to gently sloping land near three-phase power, you could be sitting on a community solar host site. Cannon Solar handles everything — from feasibility studies and interconnection to construction and long-term operations — while you collect predictable lease income for 20–25 years.
What makes land ideal?
10+ contiguous acres
Minimum viable parcel. 20–100 acres is typical.
Flat or gentle slope
Less than 5% grade preferred. Southern exposure a plus.
Near 3-phase distribution
Within 1 mile of substation or three-phase lines.
Clear title & zoning
Agricultural, industrial, or mixed-use zoning accepted.
No major wetlands
Wetland buffers are workable; large bodies are not.
Road access
All-weather road access for trucks and equipment.
How the landowner process works
- 1
Free desktop screen
Send us your parcel address or GIS coordinates. We check interconnection capacity, zoning, environmental constraints, and proximity to three-phase lines — all within 5 business days.
- 2
Site visit & feasibility
If the desktop screen looks promising, our team walks the site, confirms topography, identifies wetland buffers, and meets with the local AHJ. You'll receive a go/no-go recommendation.
- 3
Lease agreement
We negotiate a long-term lease (typically 20–25 years with extension options). Payments are usually $800–$1,500 per acre per year, escalated 1.5–2% annually, starting at commercial operation.
- 4
We build & operate
Cannon handles permitting, interconnection, EPC construction, and long-term O&M through our CANOS platform. You retain ownership of the land and receive lease payments on schedule.
What landowners earn
$800–$1,500
per acre / year
20–25 yrs
typical lease term
$0
out-of-pocket cost
Land
stays in your name
Exact rates depend on state program, interconnection costs, land size, and local tax structure. No fees to evaluate your parcel.
Land calculator
Estimate the system your land could host
Mounting type
Trackers harvest ~15–25% more energy per kW but cost more. We'll recommend the right approach during the feasibility study.
4.0 MW
DC nameplate
6.00 GWh
6,000,000 kWh
571
avg US household
$32.0k–$60.0k
per year
Estimates assume ~70% usable land after setbacks, ~1,500 kWh/kW-DC annual production, and $800–$1,500/acre/yr lease rates. Actual figures depend on interconnection capacity, topography, soils, zoning, state program rules, and utility tariffs. Free desktop screen confirms what your specific parcel can support.
The full community solar stack
Four services. One accountable partner.
Most community solar projects bounce between a developer, an EPC, an O&M shop, and a subscriber CRM - each finger-pointing at the other. Cannon Community Solar runs every layer in-house, so you can hire one, several, or all four.
Project development & sales
Site origination, interconnection studies, offtake structuring, and project-level sales to tax-equity, sponsors, and IPPs. We bring projects from greenfield to NTP-ready.
- Site control, zoning, and AHJ engagement
- Interconnection queue management + utility coordination
- Tax-equity, sponsor-equity, and project-sale syndication
Good fit for
Landowners, capital partners, and co-developers
EPC / construction
Engineering, procurement, and construction of ground-mount community solar arrays at any scale. Fixed-tilt or single-axis tracker, AHJ + utility, in-house W-2 crews.
- Stamped civil, structural, electrical, and SCADA design
- Domestic-content procurement for the 10% IRA ITC adder
- MV collection, substation tie-in, commissioning, and PTO
Good fit for
Sponsors and developers with NTP-ready projects
O&M / asset management
Preventative maintenance, vegetation management, inverter swaps, monitoring, and warranty work - under our CANOS platform. We O&M assets we built and assets we didn't.
- 24/7 SCADA monitoring with sub-string alerting
- Preventative maintenance, IR thermography, vegetation, washing
- OEM warranty claims, RMA logistics, and IE-grade reporting
Good fit for
Sponsor-owned assets and distressed sites
Subscriber management
Subscriber acquisition (LMI compliant where required), onboarding, billing, customer support, and credit allocation. We run the customer side so the asset owner doesn't have to.
- Acquisition campaigns with LMI-compliant funnels
- Onboarding, KYC, utility data integration, and credit allocation
- Billing, dunning, and US-based subscriber support
Good fit for
Asset owners who want a turnkey customer side
Who we work with
Developer, landowner, or subscriber - there's a path.
Developers & asset owners
Need an EPC partner, an O&M operator, or someone to take subscriber management off your plate? We slot in at any layer of your community solar stack - single project or full portfolio.
Talk to a developer leadLandowners
Have 10+ acres of flat land near three-phase distribution? You may be sitting on a community solar host site worth $1,000–$2,000/acre/year in lease income for 25+ years - no upper limit on parcel size. Free desktop screen.
Get a free land screenSubscribers & households
Want to support local clean energy and save 5–25% on your power bill - without putting anything on your roof? Get on the waitlist for the next Cannon Community Solar project in your area.
Join a project near youCommunity solar 101
Learn how it really works — no jargon, no sales pitch.
Community solar is one of the most misunderstood programs in clean energy. Here's a plain-English breakdown of how the bill credits, subscriptions, contracts, and economics actually work — so you can decide whether it's a fit before you ever talk to us.
Key terms, defined
Bill credit
A dollar amount applied to your utility bill based on your share of a community solar project's output. Credits typically exceed your subscription cost — that gap is your savings.
Subscription
Your agreement to receive a portion of a community solar project's output. Most are month-to-month with 30–90 day cancellation. No credit check, no installation, no roof work.
Anchor tenant
A large subscriber (often a municipality, school, or business) that takes 40%+ of a project's capacity, providing baseline revenue while residential subscribers fill the rest.
LMI carve-out
Low- and Moderate-Income capacity reserved by state programs (typically 30–40%) for households below a certain income threshold, often with deeper savings.
Virtual net metering (VNM)
The mechanism that lets your bill credit come from a project not physically connected to your meter. Your utility tracks the math behind the scenes.
Interconnection
The technical and contractual process of connecting a solar project to the utility's distribution grid. The bottleneck on most community solar projects.
Offtake
Who buys the electricity (or credits) the project produces. In community solar, the offtake is split among subscribers rather than sold to a single utility.
Subscription rate
The discounted price you pay per credit. Usually quoted as a % discount off your utility's supply rate (e.g. 10% off retail).
PTO
Permission to Operate — the utility's final sign-off that allows the project to energize, generate power, and start delivering credits to subscribers.
ITC
Investment Tax Credit. A federal tax credit (currently 30%+ with adders) that funds most of a project's capital stack and enables the subscriber discount.
Domestic content adder
An extra 10% federal tax credit for projects built with US-made steel and panels — part of why we source domestically when feasible.
Energy community
A federally-designated area (often near a closed coal plant or brownfield) that qualifies projects for a 10% bonus tax credit. Much of MD, PA, IL fits.
Myths vs. reality
The most common things people get wrong about community solar.
Myth
Community solar means panels on my roof.
Reality
No panels touch your home. The solar farm is built on land somewhere in your utility territory — your only role is signing up to receive credits.
Myth
I'm switching electricity providers.
Reality
Your utility stays exactly the same. They still deliver power, send the bill, and handle outages. You're just receiving an additional credit line on that bill.
Myth
If the sun doesn't shine, my power goes out.
Reality
Your home draws from the grid 24/7 just like always. Community solar production averages out across the month — credits are accounting, not a direct power line to your house.
Myth
There's an upfront cost or contract trap.
Reality
Reputable programs (including ours) charge $0 to enroll, run no credit check, and let you cancel with 30–90 days' notice. If a provider asks for money upfront, walk away.
Myth
I'll save 50%+ on my bill.
Reality
Realistic savings are 5–25% on your supply (generation) charges — not your full bill. Delivery, taxes, and fees stay the same. Anyone promising more is misleading you.
Myth
It's only for low-income households.
Reality
Most programs are open to anyone. LMI carve-outs reserve a portion of capacity for income-qualified households at deeper discounts, but the majority of subscribers are regular ratepayers.
Myth
If I move, I lose my subscription.
Reality
If you move within the same utility territory, your subscription transfers to your new address. If you leave the territory, you simply cancel — no early termination fee on a properly structured program.
Myth
Community solar competes with rooftop solar.
Reality
They serve different people. Rooftop is best when you own a sunny home and can finance the install. Community solar fills the gap for renters, shaded roofs, condos, and anyone who wants savings without capital risk.
How a community solar bill actually works
A simplified example for a household using 1,000 kWh/month at a $0.16/kWh utility supply rate, subscribed at a 10% discount.
Step 1 · Utility bill arrives
Your utility bills you $160 for 1,000 kWh of supply, plus delivery and fees. Same as always.
Step 2 · Solar credit applied
Your share of the project produced 1,000 kWh worth of credits, valued at $160 by the utility. That credit lands on your bill.
Step 3 · You pay the subscription
Cannon Community Solar bills you $144 for those credits (10% off). Net result: $16 saved this month, every month.
Real savings vary with your usage, your utility's supply rate, and your subscription discount. Months when production exceeds usage roll forward as a credit balance — you never lose value.
The full project timeline
From the day a landowner signs a lease to the day the first subscriber sees a credit — typical milestones for a 5 MW community solar project.
Phase 1
Months 0–6
Site control & feasibility
Land lease signed, desktop due diligence, environmental screen, interconnection application submitted.
Phase 2
Months 6–18
Permitting & engineering
Local AHJ approvals, utility study completed, full engineering design, equipment procurement, financing close.
Phase 3
Months 18–24
Construction & commissioning
Site prep, racking and panel installation, MV collection, substation tie-in, commissioning, utility witness test, PTO.
Phase 4
Year 2 onward
Operations & subscriber credits
First production hits the grid, subscriber credits begin within 30–60 days, 25+ years of O&M and customer support.
Want to go deeper?
These resources break down each piece of the community solar stack in detail — written for landowners, subscribers, and project sponsors alike.
Project development & sales
Origination, interconnection, offtake structuring, capital stack.
EPC & construction
Engineering, procurement, ground-mount construction, commissioning.
O&M and asset management
Monitoring, vegetation, inverter swaps, warranty work.
Subscriber management
Acquisition, LMI compliance, billing, customer support.
State program guides
Plain-English overviews of IL, NY, NJ, MA, MD, ME, VA, DE, PA, NC, NH, DC.
Project types & site formats
Greenfield, landfill cap, brownfield, agrivoltaic, carport.
Why community solar
Cleaner power, shared upside.
Community solar is the rare energy project where the subscriber, the landowner, the developer, the utility, and the surrounding town all come out ahead. Here's what each side gets.
Lower bills, no rooftop work
Subscribers save 5–25% on their electricity supply with no panels on their roof, no upfront cost, no credit check, and 30–90 day cancellation. Renters and apartment dwellers finally get to participate in solar.
Lease income for landowners
Underused acreage - fallow farmland, capped landfills, brownfields - earns predictable lease revenue for 20–25 years, often $800–$1,500/acre/year, while staying in the family.
Long-duration revenue for developers
Stable, contracted cashflows from a diversified subscriber base, with state programs that de-risk offtake. Stack with ITC, depreciation, and adders for LMI, domestic content, and energy communities.
Real, local clean MWh
Each project displaces fossil generation on the same distribution feeder - measurable carbon reduction tied to a specific town, not a renewable energy certificate from across the country.
Local jobs and tax base
Construction wages, ongoing O&M crews, and PILOT or property-tax payments stay in the host community. Most of our crews live within 90 minutes of the sites they build and service.
LMI access, by design
Programs in IL, NY, NJ, MD, and others carve out 30–40% of capacity for low- and moderate-income households - turning the savings into a meaningful monthly lift for the families that need it most.
Case Studies
What community solar has actually done - state by state.
Composite snapshots drawn from publicly reported program outcomes across IL, NY, MD, MA, ME, and D.C. Specific developers and host names are intentionally withheld - what matters is what the market mechanics actually delivered for subscribers, landowners, and investors.
A 2 MW LMI project that cut bills 50% for 400 households
Illinois Solar for All · ComEd territory
- Size
- ≈ 2 MW AC ground-mount
- Subscribers
- ~400 income-qualified households + 1 anchor non-profit
Public benefit
Subscribers received a guaranteed 50% bill credit on their solar share - averaging $400–$600 in annual household savings, with no upfront cost and no credit check. The project's 25-year REC contract locked in pricing the day it energized.
Investor outcome
Project sponsor secured a 25-year IPA REC contract plus federal ITC + LMI bonus credit (10%) and Energy Community bonus (10%) - pushing tax-equity yields into the low-teens. Site control plus interconnection clarity drove a clean construction-to-NTP cycle.
Illinois's stacked LMI carve-out + 25-year REC + bonus credit math is one of the most predictable IRR stories in US community solar - when you can win allocation.
A 5 MW Value-of-DER project on a closed landfill
NYSERDA NY-Sun · National Grid Upstate territory
- Size
- ≈ 5 MW AC on a 25-acre capped landfill
- Subscribers
- ~750 residential + small-business subscribers, with 40% reserved for disadvantaged-community households
Public benefit
Disadvantaged-community subscribers received 10% guaranteed bill savings under the Inclusive Community Solar Adder; the project also paid the host municipality lease income on land that had been generating zero revenue since closure.
Investor outcome
Brownfield + Energy Community + LMI adders stacked with VDER compensation and NYSERDA incentives turned a marginal site into a bankable 25-year cash-flow asset - without competing with farmland or development land.
NY's adder stack rewards developers who bring complicated sites - landfills, brownfields, and disadvantaged communities - to projects that pencil cleanly.
A small-business + LMI portfolio that survived the program transition
Maryland PSC Pilot → permanent program (SB 1022)
- Size
- ≈ 4 MW across two BGE-territory sites
- Subscribers
- Mix of small-business subscribers (≈40%) and LMI households (≈40%, meeting the program carve-out)
Public benefit
LMI subscribers received a 25% guaranteed bill credit; small-business subscribers locked in 10% off energy supply for 20 years - meaningful margin protection for restaurants, daycares, and storefronts that don't qualify for utility-rate hedging.
Investor outcome
Sponsors who built compliant LMI subscriber stacks before the pilot's 2023 sunset transitioned cleanly into the permanent program under SB 1022, preserving REC value and avoiding the stranded-asset risk that hit speculative entrants.
Maryland rewards operators who execute the LMI compliance discipline - the projects that get rebuilt, not stranded, when programs evolve.
A 1.5 MW dual-use ag-solar array generating crops + credits
MA SMART · National Grid territory · Agricultural Solar Tariff Generation Unit
- Size
- ≈ 1.5 MW AC elevated single-axis tracker over active hayfield
- Subscribers
- ≈ 250 residential subscribers + a participating municipal aggregation
Public benefit
Subscribers received an average 15% bill credit; the host farm continued to harvest hay and graze sheep beneath the array - preserving a working agricultural parcel that would otherwise have been lost to development.
Investor outcome
The MA SMART agricultural adder + low-income enhancement pushed effective compensation well above the base rate; the project's 20-year SMART tariff plus REC stripping delivered a predictable revenue stack with strong tax-equity appeal.
MA's dual-use rules let one parcel stack farm income, lease income, and 20-year tariff revenue - a rare three-way win for landowners, subscribers, and sponsors.
An orphaned 3 MW project rescued under new O&M
Maine NEB · Versant / CMP territory
- Size
- ≈ 3 MW AC ground-mount
- Subscribers
- ≈ 500 residential subscribers across two utility territories
Public benefit
When the original O&M provider walked away after the 2023 NEB tariff changes, subscribers were facing months of underperformance and incorrect bill credits. A fresh O&M takeover restored production within weeks and reconciled 18 months of credit shortfalls back to households.
Investor outcome
The asset's NEB-era PPA was preserved by stabilizing performance before tariff-true-up windows closed - protecting revenue and bond covenants on a project that was being quietly written down.
Maine's orphaned-asset wave isn't a story of bad solar - it's a story of bad operations. The right takeover crew turns abandoned assets back into performing ones.
A rooftop CREF that put 50% bill savings on 120 Pepco accounts
DOEE Solar for All · Pepco DC territory
- Size
- ≈ 1 MW AC across multiple rooftops + canopies
- Subscribers
- 120 Solar for All-qualified low-income households, all in Pepco service area
Public benefit
Each subscriber household received roughly 50% off their annual electric bill - an average of $500+ per year - with no enrollment fee, no credit check, and no obligation to remain a Pepco bundled customer. Households below 80% AMI got priority.
Investor outcome
DOEE's REDF-funded subscriber payments plus a 15% RPS solar carve-out create some of the strongest CREF REC pricing in the country; small-footprint rooftop and canopy deployments avoid the land-cost barrier that constrains other markets.
D.C. is the cleanest LMI-only thesis in the country: one utility, one regulator, one subscriber pool - and the highest guaranteed savings percentage of any program we operate in.
A 4 MW Duke shared-solar project anchored by a county school district
HB 589 Shared Solar · Duke Energy Carolinas
- Size
- ≈ 4 MW AC ground-mount on a former tobacco parcel
- Subscribers
- ≈ 600 residential subscribers + a county school district anchor (≈40% of capacity)
Public benefit
Residential subscribers received an average 12% bill credit; the school district anchor locked in 10% off energy supply for 20 years - meaningful margin protection in a state where school operating budgets are tight. The host landowner converted an unproductive ag parcel into 25 years of lease income.
Investor outcome
The project's anchor-tenant structure (school district) de-risked the subscriber book on day one; combined with Duke Shared Solar tariff payments, the IRA ITC, and a domestic-content adder, the asset cleared a tax-equity hurdle that pure-residential subscriber books often miss in newer markets.
North Carolina rewards developers who bring institutional anchor tenants - schools, municipalities, hospitals - to balance the residential subscriber stack. Duke is a willing counterparty when the offtake is clean.
A 1 MW LMI group-host project across two NH utility territories
Group Net Metering · Eversource NH + NHEC
- Size
- ≈ 1 MW AC ground-mount on a closed gravel pit
- Subscribers
- ≈ 200 LMI households across Eversource and NHEC territory (allocated separately per group-host rules)
Public benefit
LMI subscribers received roughly 20% off their net metering credit value through the PUC's LMI Community Solar adder - averaging $300–$500 per household per year. The closed gravel pit, generating zero economic activity since reclamation, became a 25-year lease asset for the host landowner.
Investor outcome
Stacking the PUC LMI adder with the IRA ITC and a brownfield-style siting story (reclaimed pit) turned a sub-2 MW project that most developers skip in NH into a bankable cash-flow asset. Group-host structure required clean credit-allocation discipline across two utilities.
New Hampshire is small but deliberate - the PUC LMI adder plus group-host mechanics reward operators who can run tight subscriber compliance across multiple utility territories without losing a credit.
Sources: Illinois Power Agency, NYSERDA, Maryland PSC, Massachusetts DOER (SMART program), Maine PUC, and DC DOEE program reports. Specific developer, host, and subscriber identities are withheld to protect competitive positioning.
Why Cannon Community Solar
Backed by a 22-state EPC. Built for community solar.
Cannon Community Solar is the community-solar arm of Cannon Solar - the same engineering bench, W-2 install crews, and CANOS service platform that runs commercial and residential portfolios across 22 states. We're not a developer who hires an EPC. We're not an EPC who hires an O&M sub. It's the same team from origination to year 25.
- In-house engineering, design, and stamped plan sets
- W-2 install crews - no rotating subs on your jobsite
- CANOS service platform - 22-state on-site response
- LMI-compliant subscriber programs where required
- Tax-equity and sponsor-side relationships in-place
- Standard MSAs for portfolio O&M takeover
Common questions
Community solar, demystified.
What is community solar?
Community solar is a shared solar array that delivers clean energy credits to dozens or hundreds of nearby utility customers who can't (or don't want to) install panels on their own roof. Projects can range from a few hundred kilowatts to dozens of megawatts. Subscribers save 5–25% on their electricity bill, the developer earns long-term revenue, and the host landowner earns lease income.
What does Cannon Community Solar do?
We're a full-stack community solar partner - sister company to Cannon Solar. We handle origination and project sales, EPC design and construction, long-term O&M, and subscriber acquisition + billing management. Pick the scope you need; we cover the rest.
Which states do you operate community solar in?
We follow the open community solar markets - Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Washington, D.C. - and we add new states as their programs come online.
I have land - how do I get a project on it?
Reach out via the landowner form. Viable parcels start around 10 acres and scale up from there - flat to gently sloping, within reach of three-phase distribution. We'll run a free desktop screen - interconnection capacity, zoning, environmental - and tell you within a week if your site pencils.
Can I subscribe to a Cannon Community Solar project?
Yes - wherever we operate, we manage the subscriber side too. Most subscribers save 5–25% versus their utility supply rate, with no rooftop work, no upfront cost, and the ability to cancel with 30–90 days' notice depending on the program.
Will you O&M a community solar asset you didn't build?
Absolutely. Cannon's CANOS service platform takes over operating community solar assets across the country - preventative maintenance, vegetation management, inverter swaps, performance monitoring, and warranty work, with on-site response from our 22-state W-2 service crews.
Ready to put a community solar project in motion?
Pick the path that fits - developer, landowner, subscriber, or project owner who needs subscribers - and we'll take it from there.