Locals could start seeing many more solar panels in northern Michigan neighborhoods in the months to come. Such is the goal of a new program launched by Traverse City’s Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities – dubbed Access MI Solar – which seeks to lower the price of solar installations by leveraging a group-buy model. The program comes to Traverse City after a successful pilot launch in Petoskey last year – and coincides with favorable nationwide trends in solar energy, such as dropping installation prices and skyrocketing adoption. Could the program be the thing that finally makes solar more commonplace in the Grand Traverse area?

For Access MI Solar, Groundwork has partnered with local solar provider CBS Solar, which has agreed to offer pricing on a volume discounting basis. If four or more customers buy into Access MI Solar, each customer will receive a 5 percent discount on their solar hardware and installation. If there are seven or more participants, the discount goes up to 10 percent. And with 10 or more customers signed up, each customer gets a 15 percent discount.

“The program was originally called ‘Grow Solar Little Traverse,’ which we ran as a pilot program in the Petoskey area last year,” says Ashley Rudzinski, Groundwork’s climate and environment program director. “Our initial goal was just to have about 10 houses signed on, but we ended up having 18 sign on by the end of the spring. We were really pleased with that, because 18 households in Petoskey is a pretty significant amount, and we were also able to lock everyone in at that 15 percent discount rate.”

The expansion (and rebranding) of the Access MI Solar program makes it available to any household or “small-scale commercial businesses” within a 30-mile radius of Traverse City. To start, Groundwork is staying conservative with its expectations for the program: The initial target is just to get 20 or more sign-ups in the area. However, Rudzinski also notes that this launch into Traverse City is just the start of an ongoing effort to promote solar adoption in the area. The organization hopes to boost adoption over time by increasing local visibility of solar power.

“In Petoskey, many of our folks that are signing on to this year's cohort saw panels going in on their neighbor's houses, and actually reached out to us pretty quickly after we ran the program last year, saying, ‘Hey, are you still doing this? Can we still sign on?’” Rudzinski tells The Ticker. “Once you know someone [who has solar], there’s a lot more excitement and enthusiasm for it. You can actually see it on your neighbor's house, or talk to them about how it's impacted their bill. I think we're seeing more and more folks interested in adopting renewable energy in northern Michigan, just because it's so much more visible now in the community.”

It’s not just northern Michigan, either. According to data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), solar added more electricity-generating capacity to the grid than any other energy source during each of the past three years. In 2022, solar accounted for 50 percent of new generating capacity, handily outstripping both wind (23 percent) and natural gas (17 percent). For comparison, in 2012, solar represented just 9 percent of new power-generating capacity.

Beyond increased visibility, Rudzinski points to falling costs – mostly thanks to federal incentives – as the impetus for the growing popularity of solar. Per SEIA data, the average cost of a residential solar installation dropped to $1.29 per watt in 2020, compared to $5.79 per watt a decade previous.

“There’s been so much media coverage of the federal incentives for renewable energy, and I think that those savings coupled with this [Access MI Solar] program makes it an attractive time to buy in for our community,” Rudzinski says.

Groundwork is also counting on another factor to help drive Traverse City participation in Access MI Solar: The commitments by both the City of Traverse City and Traverse City Light & Power (TCLP) to move aggressively toward renewable energy. In 2018, shortly after city commissioners pledged to power all city buildings with renewable energy by 2020 (a goal the city ultimately achieved), TCLP made Traverse City the first city in Michigan to commit to using 100 percent renewable energy community-wide by 2040. Rudzinski sees those commitments as proof of strong momentum for renewable energy locally.

“It definitely seems like there is a healthy appetite [for renewables],” Rudzinski says of the Traverse City area. “Projects like ours are supported by the fact that the city has made this 100 percent renewable goal, and they probably wouldn’t have been able to start down that road unless there was some strong push from citizens demanding more renewable energy. So, we see [TCLP’s commitment and Access MI Solar] as being really complementary to one another.”

That mindset is shared among TCLP’s leadership.

“It is a privilege for TCLP to support and encourage participation into the Access MI Solar program spearheaded by Groundwork Center,” TCLP Executive Director Brandie Ekren wrote in a statement provided to The Ticker. “This opportunity is in alignment with TCLP’s plans for a clean energy future that is in partnership with the community we serve.  Leveraging distributed energy resources is one of the many solutions that moves us forward.”

While Groundwork’s initial expectations for Access MI Solar in Traverse City are modest, Rudzinski has ambitious visions for the future. She points to the “Solarize” program in Ann Arbor, a similar community bulk-buy solar initiative, as an example of what Access MI Solar could eventually become. Solarize was launched in 2019 as part of Ann Arbor’s A2ZERO​​ initiative, which seeks to achieve “a ju​​st transition to community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030.” As of last May, Solarize had brought more than three megawatts of new solar installations online for approximately 430 homes in the Ann Arbor area, collectively saving residents about $1.3 million in upfront solar hardware and installation costs.

“They have actually institutionalized a position within city government to run their program, and they run something like eight cohorts a year,” Rudzinski says of Solarize. “So I think there is significant potential to scale [Access MI Solar] up in the future. We’d definitely be interested in having conversation with folks at the city, or maybe even other entities, about institutionalizing this position so that the program could just continuously be offered. And then we’re hopeful that in future years, we might even be able to run the program in the fall and the spring and do two cycles per year.”

Groundwork is encouraging interested parties to join the Access MI Solar program by Earth Day, which is this Saturday, April 22.