New York City, New York, NYC, NYS, YSG Solar
November 17, 2020

NYSERDA has contacted contractors and stakeholders to announce a new Community Adder Block. Community Adder Block 3 will have a capacity of 215MW at an incentive rate of $0.16/Watt, servicing National Grid, NYSEG, and Rochester Gas and Electric Service Territories.



NYSERDA states that this new Community Adder Block 3 is a result of significant market uptake, and they hope that it will provide certainty to the New York solar market. The Community Adder Dashboard is available at this link, allowing users to monitor allocation. The Dashboard only displays the active Adder Block, which is currently Block 2, but all projects which are submitted after Block 2 is full will receive the new Community Adder Block 3.



Below are screenshots from the Dashboard showing the current status of the Community Adder in different service territories. The images, courtesy of NYSERDA, are accurate as of the publication date of this article.



Community Adder Block: National Grid, NYSEG, and Rochester Gas and Electric Service Territories



Community Adder Block


Community Adder Block: Central Hudson



Community Adder Block


Community Adder Block: Orange and Rockland (O&R)



Community Adder Block


What is the NY-Sun Community Adder?

The Community Adder is an additional upfront incentive offered by NYSERDA. It is available to eligible community solar projects located in certain utility service areas, and Adder rates are dependent on which service area the project is located in. The Adder is available for a limited number of MW. For a more in-depth explanation of the NY-Sun Community Adder, you can download an official NYSERDA fact sheet at this link. The fact sheet covers eligibility and application requirements, as well as the thinking behind the Community Adder and its origins.



Solar Farms & The Community Adder Block

A solar land lease is an excellent way to profit from unused land in the state of New York. Solar developers throughout the state are eager to construct solar farms on parcels of unused land and are willing to pay hosts high rates to do so. With the announcement of this new Community Adder Block, developers intending to take advantage of the Adder are even further incentivized to pursue solar farm land leasing across NY. This increased demand puts landowners and potential hosts in a strong position when it comes to negotiating the solar farm lease rate.



New York Solar Farm Land Lease Rates

Solar farm land leases rates are generally offered on a per-acre basis, though, in some cases, they may also operate on a per-MW basis. In New York State, as in the rest of the country, solar farm lease rates are variable and depend on a wide range of factors. Factors like the amount of land being leased, annual sunlight exposure, grid proximity, soil quality, location, availability of incentives, and many more will go a long way to determining the profit for a landowner/host. For further information on New York solar farm land lease rates, please consult our article, ‘How Much Money Can a Solar Farm Make?’, at this link.



Want to lease your land for solar? YSG is currently seeking available, unused land throughout New York and surrounding states. YSG has been working in the solar sector for over ten years and can offer a highly-competitive per-acre rate for a suitable piece of land. To find out if your land is suitable for a solar farm, send us an email or call at 212.389.9215 today.



YSG Solar is a project development vehicle responsible for commoditizing energy infrastructure projects. We work with long-term owners and operators to provide clean energy assets with stable, predictable cash flows. YSG's market focus is distributed generation and utility-scale projects located within North America.



Sources:

https://view.s7.exacttarget.com/?qs=5eab0b7f12281b09c03d05bd39563ee0887899e1b31fb16866db472cb20a8067aad30d2c35e300bc2f40e2cf503499d27cffc837214b6326cc63c64337a495d9f2f6307eadacf40d78d1dc76b0d760fb

https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Programs/NY-Sun/Contractors/Dashboards-and-incentives/Community-Adder

 

Featured Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash.