Allegheny Solar Cooperative – A Solar Cooperative Solution!

Solar energy is great, isn’t it? It creates needed electricity and heat without combustion. It’s decentralized. And it uses a resource that will never give out. But right now, installations are done slowly, one array at a time. Progress, therefore, is very slow.

The Allegheny Solar Cooperative (ASC) wants to speed the process up by facilitating more installations in the the region, and doing so through a for-profit cooperative business model. As Ian Smith, an ASC co-founder, says, the business is “fully community member-funded, without any subsidy.”

However, a few things had to happen before the ASC could get started.

First, forward-thinking community leaders in Millvale began initiatives to take advantage of their unique riverfront location, and then began planning a Millvale eco-district, tying sustainable development to inclusive economic progress.

Smith credits Millvale’s Sustainability Coordinator, Zaheen Hussain, for working tirelessly in eco-district planning and attracting more people to solar as an option. Solarize Allegheny, which promotes solar energy throughout Allegheny County, helped homeowners navigate the solar development process and raised awareness that solar energy was feasible. Then the Millvale Community Library, and the Imagine Center next door, installed the first Millvale array on its roof as an example. Brian and Mandy Wolovich installed a second on their Millvale home. The third, was on the Millvale Community Center on Lincoln Avenue.

“At first we intended for the development to be on non-profit buildings,” said Smith. Various locations were explored, discounted, and explored again. However, a planning meeting at the Grist House Brewery over beers got the attention of the Grist House owners, who invited a proposal. That became the ASC’s first project!

The model is simple. Members invest in shares in ASC. That investment capital is used to develop a solar project. ASC then charges the project building owners a competitive price for the energy, and ASC also gets paid through the reimbursement received from the electric utility for the excess electricity not used and sent back into the grid. Profits are then distributed to members or reinvested in new projects or other expenses, according to the members’ democratic decisions. Any federal income taxes owed by the cooperative are then reduced by tax credits the federal government has established for businesses. ASC is a for-profit Pennsylvania cooperative business, the type known as a “producer cooperative”. They may do solar projects in any Pennsylvania community, but for now will focus on the Pittsburgh region.

Mandy Wolovich, an ASC co-founder, says, “we’re just finishing up a guide for establishing a producer cooperative like the ASC, and we’ll be glad to share it with anyone interested”. It is not easy. Every new initiative takes coordinated effort, and for the ASC it was no different. Cooperatives are not a shortcut, nor are they a charity. But, as in the case of the ASC, it is an empowering means for self-help among community members, sharing the burdens of a large investment in order to make their community better.

There are still a few challenges to larger-scale solar production in Pennsylvania, which would take another article to describe. For the ASC there was, more importantly, the necessary investment in time and expertise (and often money) to solve technical challenges, organize the business, and deal with legal matters.

Despite those challenges, the founders of the ASC have largely overcome the challenges of learning cooperative culture-level decision-making and of operating under the less common cooperative business model.

Looking to the future, ASC has three goals: first, to become a major solar developer, installing larger arrays in more locations and spreading the economic benefits; second, to directly employ many people in the solar industry, in administration and in technical positions and “possibly even as a worker-owned cooperative;” and third, to share their experience and capacity as a regional resource by “being successful enough to engage the region with great expertise,” said Smith.

They’ve already had a positive impact on the solar energy scene in Millvale. It probably won’t be long before they have a greater impact throughout the Pittsburgh region, reducing greenhouse gasses and becoming a progressive leader in the local cooperative business culture.

For more on the Allegheny Solar Cooperative see www.millvalelibrary.org/allegheny-solar-cooperative

Ron Gaydos is a consultant in inclusive economic development, entrepreneurship, and organizational strategy. He is a member of the Thomas Merton Center’s New Economy Campaign, and Co-Founder of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Cooperatives. (www.PittsburghChamber.coop)

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