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Community Solar Programs Clarification

Posted on: July 27, 2022 - 10:56am
Rockland Community Power

Community Solar Programs

In the last couple of weeks, the Village office has received a number of calls from residents regarding community solar companies.  This notice is to help clear up any confusion. 

Since November of 2020, the Village has participated in an innovative clean energy program, called Rockland Community Power.  Some of our residents signed up for Community Solar through this program in 2021 with Ampion, a community solar provider.  It takes time to launch these solar farm projects.  Residents were subscribed last year to a solar farm which launched just a few months ago and is now providing solar energy to the grid. 

If you are getting billed by Ampion, then you most likely signed up with Ampion in 2021 and you may have agreed to receive billing notices by email.  You may have overlooked the first few bills because you might even have forgotten that you had signed up – or forgot the name of the community solar provider.

If you previously subscribed, you should now be receiving solar bill credits for your share (or allocation) of the energy output from the solar farm, that is fed into the electricity grid.   Your bills from Ampion should correspond to credits on your Orange & Rockland (O&R) bill. You should see those credits on the first page of your O&R bill, listed as CDG Credits (community distributed generation or community solar) and Value Stack Credit (the monetary value of your share of the monthly output from the community solar project).

To sum up, if you previously signed up with Ampion through the Village program, these bills are legitimate. You should see the credits on your O&R bills.  You are being billed by Ampion for roughly 90% of your electric supply usage, with roughly 10% as your net credit.  

Here are some of the benefits of Community Solar:

  • Annual guaranteed savings (solar bill credits) on your electricity bill derived from State incentives for renewable generation
  • Reduced carbon emissions
  • No rooftop panels required and nothing to install on your property
  • No maintenance costs
  • No sign-up or cancellation fees
  • Support the development of clean, renewable energy in NY State

In addition, we want to remind you that Rockland Community Power program representatives do not go door to door and engage in direct sales. Please be aware that if you sign up through a company going door to door, it is not the Village program.  You must carefully vet the contract for yourself.

For more information on Community Solar or any other aspect of the Rockland Community Power program, please contact the helpline at 845 859-9099, option 1, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.  Or check the website at www.rocklandcommunitypower.com.