Virginia is trying a different way to make clean energy easier for households to afford: organizing group purchases of rooftop solar.
For participating households, the statewide initiative could reduce installation costs by 20% to 30% and save about $2,200 a year on electricity.
Here's what to know
Known as Switch Together, the program is the first statewide rooftop-solar bulk-buy effort in the country. By combining customer demand, trusted installers can purchase equipment in larger quantities and offer lower prices, according to Canary Media.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger's office backed the effort, which is run by the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors, or SUN. Virginia is not directly paying for the effort, but the partnership could help it reach more households statewide.
The main offering is rooftop solar, though some participants may also receive discounts on home batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps.
SUN said its July announcement of the program has already drawn interest from over 4,300 households and organizations seeking details, with 120 of them signing contracts. Sign-ups remain open through October 15.
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Brandon Praileau, who leads SUN's work in Virginia, told Canary Media he believes the campaign could finish with about 5,000 information requests and roughly 500 signed contracts.
"We're talking about a utility-scale amount of solar with those numbers," he said. "Almost 4 megawatts."
More background
Residents in Virginia have been dealing with rising utility bills, while the state's heavy concentration of data centers has added more pressure to the electric grid.
More rooftop solar could help on both fronts by lowering home energy costs and reducing strain on the system.
As Canary Media reported, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans ended a federal tax break that had covered 30% of the cost of household renewable-energy investments. Without that incentive, state programs that lower upfront costs could play a larger role in whether solar makes financial sense for households.
Praileau started with the group in 2023, not long after solar panels cut his Norfolk church's utility bills by 25%.
What's being done?
SUN has spent years running community-based solar bulk-purchase campaigns around the U.S., and Virginia marks the group's expansion of that strategy to the statewide level.
This newer version of the approach relies more on partnerships with local governments, which can help build confidence in the program and persuade more households to participate.
In Richmond, according to Canary Media, a SUN-only campaign led to about 20 homes adding solar. A follow-up push that added mailers from the local government roughly tripled that total.
As Praileau put it, "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."
Where can I learn more?
Virginia's rooftop-solar bulk-buy campaign is part of a wider effort to make clean energy more affordable and practical around the state. These articles show how lawmakers, residents, and even home sellers are dealing with solar costs, access, and adoption from several angles.
• Virginia became the first state to take solar-buying statewide, trimming about $6,300 off systems.
• Virginia lawmakers made an affordable solar program more accessible to communities across Appalachia.
• A Virginia farmer leased 20 acres as new laws could cut bills for 125,000 homes.
• Maryland and Virginia residents can now plug in balcony solar and cut power bills.
• One seller's paid-off panels became a selling point, not a sticking point, with the right approach.
Across those developments, Virginia's solar market looks bigger than any single program. That broader picture helps explain why lower upfront costs and greater access could influence households' energy choices across the state.
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