Virginia to cut rooftop solar costs with nation-first bulk-buy program

Last month, Virginia became the first state in the country to launch a bulk-purchasing campaign for rooftop solar — a move that promises to bring down the cost of installing panels for households across Old Dominion.

The idea behind the program, called Switch Together, is simple: Solar panels come cheaper by the dozen. Trusted solar installers can pool demand to purchase equipment in bulk and pass the discounts on to participants.

Solar United Neighbors, the nonprofit running the initiative, has for years used this model on a local scale in communities around the U.S. But it’s now expanding statewide in Virginia at the urging of the office of Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, who is looking for ways to lower energy bills as utilities jack up rates in the world’s data center capital. Rooftop solar both slashes power costs for homes that install it and can drive down expenses for utility customers at large.

“If more people go solar, that’s less strain on the grid, and there’s less need to build costly infrastructure that the entire rate base would actually pay for,” said Brandon Praileau, SUN’s Virginia program director, who joined the group in 2023 after rooftop solar helped his church in Norfolk cut utility bills by a quarter.

The state is not providing any funding for Switch Together, though its partnership promises to amplify the reach of the bulk-purchasing effort, which is focused on solar but also offers residents access to cheaper home batteries, EV chargers, and, in some locations, heat pumps.

Since Spanberger announced the initiative in July, more than 4,300 residents, small businesses, and nonprofits have put their names down to receive more details, and 120 have signed contracts, according to SUN.

The campaign is set to end Oct. 15. By the time the bulk-purchasing drive is over, Praileau expects those figures will swell to 5,000 requests for info and about 500 signed contracts. ​“We’re talking about a utility-scale amount of solar with those numbers,” he said. ​“Almost 4 megawatts.”

The rooftop panels are expected to cut $2,200 off the average annual utility bill. Exactly how much households save on installation varies across the state, but it ranges from 20% to 30% off — vital discounts after the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress killed the 30% federal tax credit for households investing in renewable energy.

Over the years, SUN has backed a variety of bulk-purchase models, including recruiting potential participants on its own. But lately, SUN’s secret sauce involves a partnership with local governments, whose seal of approval lends credibility and whose outreach encourages more would-be solar owners.

In Richmond, for instance, a SUN-only campaign resulted in about 20 new solar rooftops. A second push for bulk sign-ups that included mailers from the local government led to about three times as many households adding rooftop panels.

“That level of direct marketing has proved to be the whole difference-maker,” Praileau said.

The success of SUN’s efforts in the D.C. metro area, which includes northern Virginia, drew the attention of Josephus Allmond, a longtime environmental lawyer in the state who now serves as Spanberger’s chief energy officer. ​“We thought we could drive deeper savings if we opened up the whole state,” Allmond said at an event in Charlottesville last month. ​“So that’s what we did.”