Results of Solar Market Pathways Program
The Solar Market Pathways program concluded on 30 June, 2018. Read the program's final report here. Summary slides for CICV Solar Group purchasing can be found here.
All of the information below is kept for reference.
The Council of Independent Colleges in Virginia (CICV) launched their Solar Market Pathways project in January of 2015 to aggregate the purchasing power of 15 private colleges across the commonwealth. The goal is to establish plans to collaboratively procure and install 30 megawatts of distributed solar generation by 2020. Through tailored Solar Master Plans, participating colleges will establish roadmaps to deploy solar across their campuses and methods for integrating solar energy into science and business curricula. This project is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot Initiative.
Program Objectives
Over the course of three years, the CICV Solar Market Pathways project team will engage a wide range of stakeholders across the Commonwealth to achieve the following objectives:
- Implement an innovative procurement model. Colleges will leverage their group purchasing power to reduce the costs of solar installations during three collaborative procurements taking place between 2015 and 2020.
- Develop solar expertise among faculty and students at participating institutions. Faculty at each college will provide key support to the Solar Master Plan’s development and assist the core CICV team with implementing collaborative procurements. Student researchers will assist faculty to gain real-world experience.
- Advance solar-ready communities and address barriers to solar deployment. The CICV team will work with local governments and electric utilities throughout the project to improve the procedural, financial, and legal aspects of the solar project development process.
- Address barriers to solar deployment at the state and local levels. The CICV team will research and identify existing market barriers to solar deployment—including local government processes, state regulations, and utility procedures—a and develop recommendations based on national best practices to make procuring solar easier, faster, and more affordable.
- Share best practices and lessons learned with host communities, peer higher education institutions, and national stakeholders. To promote project replicability and facilitate knowledge exchange between colleges, the solar planning and procurement process will be accompanied by semi-annual stakeholder workshops, an online solar information hub for higher education institutions, and an implementation guidebook.
Initiative Timeline
Participating Colleges
