June 25, 2025
By Jake Hoheim, Senior Director – Origination, DSD -Refinable energy sources | Not long ago, solar panels on the roof of a town hall or vast over a parking lot in high school were a rare face. Nowadays these projects become a fixed value in municipal planning. City centers, school campuses, water treatment facilities, libraries, recycling factories and more change the available space in energy -producing assets such as economy, public policy and sustainability goals stimulate infrastructure decisions.
Almost 50 GW solar energy were installed In 2024 – an increase of 21% compared to the previous year. Solar projects made up 66% of all new means for electricity generations that were added to the grid. That momentum includes efforts led by the city such as those of San Antonio Roll-out of 42 locations and the target of New York of 100 MW on top of municipal buildings. More than 500 places have collaborated with the Solsmart program of the Department of Energy to streamline the permit, zoning and inspection practices to make solar energy more accessible.
Developers often assume that municipal work will always be difficult and slow. But if you understand how to approach Governments of solar energy, the path forward is often easier to navigate and more predictable.
Where to start with municipalities
Before you spend time responding to an RFP or shaping a proposal, take a good look at the market.
Some states, such as California and Massachusetts, are friendly to solar energy in the public sector, with clear purchasing processes and streamlined approaches to accelerate purchasing. Others may have hidden friction. In Nevada, for example, developers sometimes experience limited economic lead and insufficient regulatory support. In the south of Illinois, municipalities may not even have a solar regulation – or can they be in the middle of the drafting.
If you enter a new state or region, ally yourself. Make contact with renowned EPCs in the area, individual thinkers, industrial associations and others. Be open and honest about your intentions, goals and give them what valuable information you can do in exchange. If your reputation precedes you, they are more open to those conversations and look for mutual advantageous means to work together.
Although this promotes the best tailor -made strategy for success, you do not draw any conclusions for prior to collecting information – and be honest with yourself and stakeholders. If the market does not look feasible, it is better to lose quickly and to walk early than to spend months hunting for something unfeasible. Even more than typical business companies, the development of solar energy requires a sharp use of time, resources and minimizing opportunities costs.
Once you have decided to continue, the presence becomes just as important in preparation. Spending time on the ground builds up credibility and gives you context that does not appear in documentation. Sit on planning meetings when you can. The tone in the room can shift how solar energy is received, so knows when speaking and when listening. Don’t underestimate pushback either. The approval path may simultaneously run a school board, city council, zoning plans or other committees. Developers say that the public has given input in 60% of their most recent successful projects – A memory that is expected.
Even within the supporting states, the local dynamics varies. Some municipalities have previously adopted solar energy. Others are just starting to think about it. In those cases, the people who defend the project can be the difference to step between the door and to be passed. A well-placed lawyer can at least help things behind the scenes or at least prevent plans from staying before being fully understood.
Relationships need time to build, but they are often what all keeps together through uncertainty, an ever -common headwind in the development of renewable energy sources in general.
Give expectations and implementation coordination
As soon as a project is green, the greatest risks of non -uncomfortable expectations come.
Municipal customers can expect a system to be ready as soon as it is installed because they may not be familiar with timelines of utilities and queues with interconnection. Even if you move quickly, you still have to work within these limits. It is better to be transparent about this process in advance than to reset expectations later.
Allowing can also be a bottleneck. Firefighters, electrical inspectors, local building departments – all add a layer of assessment and delay. Supervision institutions such as California’s Division of the State Architect (DSA) may require additional structural, seismic and safety assessments. If a municipality connects milestones of the project to the financing of deadlines or tax annual planning, that wrong alignment can be expensive.
Financing deserves comparable clarity. Some governments prefer self -financing due to bonds or levies. Others tend to Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) from third parties to prevent costs in advance. Both model can work, but each comes with considerations. Ownership brings long -term responsibilities, including operations and maintenance. PPAs remove those burden and still give cities and villages access to federal tax credits. In many cases, cities will also contract maintenance for their own arrays, which offers flexibility and at the same time keeps technical responsibility in experienced hands. You are not there to sell them on the model, but you have to ensure that they understand every option.
Sometimes the viability depends on scale. The city of White Plains, New York, developed a portfolio of nine locations, 6.8 MW by bundling roofs on an ice rink, sanitation complex and parking garages with other locations that were not practical in themselves. The San Bernardino City Unified School District in California implemented a portfolio of 5.6 MW awning at 16 locations. For municipalities with distributed assets, aggregation often makes the economy work.
Even within a bundled project, individual sites can still cause problems. A school district can assume that a roof is viable, but if it is 19 years old, it may need or repeated structural work before a 25-year-old sun term ends. And although cities and villages, unlike business entities, rarely run away from their facilities, it is still important to understand the long -term plan for the site, because it may not be in accordance with the life cycle of the project.
These are soluble problems, especially if they are identified early. But if your teams are not ready for them, the project will feel more difficult than it is.
Deserve trust through consistency
The more repeatable your approach, the more efficient every step becomes. Allowing movements faster, purchasing is familiar and conversations do not start with introductions. Boards will remember them through the deferred RFP process or that have marked problems in a draft regulation.
Some municipalities make that kind of presence more sustainable. If the permit offices are responsive, the policy environment is stable and remains stable from year to year, it is easier to build Momentum. If you see those ingredients, even if the first project is bumpy, it is worth considering again.
That consistency pays off. By staying active in a market, the work becomes routine and normalizing communities solar energy. When that basis is, the next project does not start from zero – it starts with experience.
Jake Hoheim is a senior director – Origination with DSD -Refinable energy sources.
Tags: DSD renewable energy sources, municipal
