Our Mission
Public ownership of solar is a major, untapped pathway for the renewable energy transition. Municipal Solar Partners is a non-profit solar developer dedicated to building publicly-owned solar for local government entities, such as municipalities, counties, school districts, and tribal nations.
Our Services
Phase 1: We work with your municipality to identify promising sites for municipally-owned solar.
Phase 2: We produce preliminary engineering, coordinate utility interconnection applications, and provide a basic feasibility analysis, including early financial modeling.
Phase 3: We shepherd projects through financing and construction, including providing financial modeling, developing RFPs, creating community benefits plans, and setting up ongoing operations & maintenance support.
We evaluate requests on a rolling basis. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to our team: info@municipalsolar.org.
We believe municipalities and their residents should share in the financial benefits by owning their own solar. Municipalities already own infrastructure like buildings, highway facilities, and water treatment plants – solar can act just like these assets while also generating surplus revenues that can be put towards community benefits like energy bill savings for economically vulnerable residents, new funding for community programs, workforce development training, or other urgent priorities.
Municipalities have important advantages in the solar development process:
Municipalities have access to underutilized land that is suitable for solar development
Municipalities are at the center of the permitting process and can help ensure projects are developed quickly, responsibly, and serve the needs of the community
Municipalities have access to cheaper forms of project debt, like bond financing, that can make publicly owned projects more affordable to develop
Municipalities can build “behind the meter” solar leading to significant financial savings
Municipalities often have Climate Action Plans and must build local renewable energy in order to fulfill their commitments
Municipalities are public bodies that are accountable to the community
Why municipal ownership?
Our Leadership Team
Mike Rauch, Advisor, is a renewable energy project development professional with well over a decade of experience in renewable energy and public policy. His experience includes development of utility-scale wind energy projects, financing commercial solar energy projects, and developing community energy savings initiatives. He’s supported the development, origination and financing of over 500MW of renewable energy projects while working for Apex Clean Energy, BQ Energy and Clean Capital. He earned a Masters of Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and a Bachelors of Science from the School of Natural Resources at the University of Vermont.
Jason Angell has worked to create an equitable renewable energy transition as a nonprofit leader and local elected official. He spearheaded the creation of a CCA in 2019 that has moved 40,000 people in the Hudson Valley to cheaper, 100% New York State renewable energy. His initiative working with the Ecological Citizen's Project to develop a community-owned solar project in Peekskill that maximizes community benefits received the U.S. DoE Community Power Accelerator prize. Jason has first-hand knowledge of the operations and interests of municipalities as a Philipstown Councilperson. He earned a Masters in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vassar College.
Partner with us
If you are a local official interested in MSP’s services please submit a request here. For other inquiries or questions about our process please reach out to info@municipalsolar.org and we will be in touch as soon as possible.