Consumers spend over a trillion dollars a year on energy, while people with low-income face a disproportionately high energy burden and greater vulnerability to environmental damage. Community-serving solar developers are working to change that by building projects that lower energy bills, create local installation and maintenance jobs and improve resilience. Yet for many of these developers — especially nonprofits and small businesses — accessing capital remains one of the most significant barriers to getting projects off the ground.

Community-serving solar developers often struggle to secure capital, as traditional lenders perceive small or first-time projects as risky. Similarly, smaller and values-aligned capital providers often lack the experience to confidently make investments, or don’t know where to find viable, impactful projects. This financing gap has long stymied renewable energy progress, especially in communities that suffer from disinvestment.

This case study highlights the Community Power Accelerator (CPA), a platform launched to help bridge this gap. An initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), CPA serves as a virtual marketplace that connects community-serving solar developers with lenders, investors and philanthropies interested in impactful renewable energy projects but lacking the infrastructure to reliably find each other.