
2022 Impact Report
Saved by the Sun
GENERATING COST SAVINGS THROUGH LOCAL CLEAN ENERGY
As a Public Benefit Corporation and Certified B Corp, we see it as both our duty and privilege to use our position as a business to generate a positive impact on the people and communities we serve. That's what life is about- people, not businesses... right? Maybe the fossil fuel industry just didn't get the memo. Well, this impact report is here to shine a light on our efforts to create an energy future where we do just that- put people first. Thanks to community solar, we can help to provide people with access to solar energy savings and an easy way to take climate action within their community.
Neighborhood Sun is on a mission to make clean, affordable, and locally-generated energy accessible to ALL.
We help households and organizations save money and support clean energy by connecting them to the lowest-cost retail energy source: community solar. This new state-supported program allows anyone who pays an electricity bill to save money by subscribing to receive a share of the discounted renewable energy generated by a nearby community solar farm. That means no costs, installations, or homeownership requirements for the subscriber!
By connecting subscribers to local solar projects in their community and managing the acquisition through our proprietary and fully customizable SunEngine™ community solar platform, Neighborhood Sun is able to empower communities with the tools they need to take back their power and directly benefit from the clean energy transition. Together, we're building a solar community-- not just a business.







Letter from Our C.E.O.
Though my journey as a climate advocate started back in 2000, it wasn’t until I founded Neighborhood Sun in 2016 that I was able to help address the intersection of climate change and energy equity. Lower-income households typically contribute the least to climate change but are impacted disproportionately by its harmful economic and health effects. Transitioning to clean energy is an opportunity to democratize our energy system and make sure it’s helping communities instead of harming them. That’s where community solar comes in and why it’s been our single focus for the past seven years.
Thanks to accessible clean energy solutions like community solar, it’s now an option for all utility customers to benefit from solar energy through a simple subscription format, not just the households who are eligible for rooftop panels. Despite seeing electricity costs rising across the country (in some cases more than 60%) leave more than one in six U.S. families behind on their utility bills this past year, we were able to provide discounts to residents and businesses on standard utility rates, leading to over $1.5 Million in savings on electricity bills for households and businesses of all income levels. From rural households to apartment renters and affordable housing residents, we worked to make sure everyone is included in this clean energy transition, earning us the Department of Energy’s 2022 Inclusive Solar Outreach Award.
As we look to the future, we are excited to continue exploring additional green energy services and products that will help us better serve the needs of our growing solar community as we find new ways to improve accessibility for lower-income subscribers. We’re proud of what we have accomplished as you’ll see in this year’s impact report, but we still have a long way to go, as a business and as a country. We look forward to a year of continued growth and impact, working with our broad community of stakeholders to make the world a cleaner, greener, and more equitable place.

Annual Highlights
Shining a Light on 2022's Impact
Serving Subscribers of All Income Levels
Thanks to our Solar Helps Advance Resident Equality (S.H.A.R.E.) program, 24% of this year's solar savings went to Low- and Moderate-Income (LMI) residents or organizations. We also completely sold out the largest LMI-only solar farm in the nation, Oaks Landfill, to LMI residents in Montgomery County, Maryland, where Neighborhood Sun was founded and remains today. Through our partnership with the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County, 829 LMI households across 6 properties will benefit from a 25% discount on their electricity.
Bringing Solar Savings to New Communities
We increased our MegaWatts under management by 50% since 2021, adding 29 new community solar projects to our fully customizable community solar software, SunEngine™. Thanks to our skilled and passionate team, we continued to grow our local impact in Maryland while also expanding into new markets so we could provide solar savings to people across 4 new states and 5 new utilities. We now manage community solar projects in Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Colorado, in addition to Maryland and our earlier projects in New Jersey, New York, and the District of Columbia.

Goals
We’ve come a long way from where we started as 3 people in a room dreaming of the future of community solar, but we still have a lot to learn. One of our values is to “fail forward” because we are a company that experiments and is willing to try new approaches without a stack full of market research telling us what to do. We’ll make mistakes and certainly are not perfect, but we’re always willing to learn and listen to our community. We’re entrepreneurial and bold because we know that we’ve got a lot of work to do and time is running short. It’s better to learn from your failures than to never try something different.
As such, our goals for 2023 include:
- Undergo recertification by B Lab as a B Corp for the second time
- Double our MW under management
- Expand into new states adopting community solar policy
- Revamp our Customer Advocacy Board and Neighbor Benefit Fund to better support our subscribers
Public Benefits and Disclosures
This Impact Report offers evidence of the work Neighborhood Sun has done in 2022 to generate benefits for the public, both in the form of benefitting individuals and the environment simultaneously through our daily business activities. As a Public Benefit Corporation registered in Maryland, Neighborhood Sun is legally bound to use our business for the creation of general public benefit, defined as "a material, positive impact on society and the environment, as measured by a third–party standard, through activities that promote a combination of specific public benefits" and specific public benefits, which include the following:
- Providing individuals or communities with beneficial products or services
- Promoting economic opportunity for individuals or communities beyond the creation of jobs in the normal course of business
- Preserving the environment
- Improving human health
- Promoting the arts, sciences, or advancement of knowledge
- Increasing the flow of capital to entities with a public benefit purpose
- The accomplishment of any other particular benefit for society or the environment