Rooftop solar sounds great in theory, but for a lot of Nevadans, it’s just not realistic. Whether you’re renting an apartment, living on a tight budget, dealing with a shaded roof, or just don’t want to drop thousands of dollars upfront, going solar can feel totally out of reach.
That’s where NV Energy’s Community Based Solar Resources (CBSR) program comes in.
It’s designed to bridge that gap. Instead of forcing individual homeowners to install their own panels, NV Energy builds and maintains smaller solar setups right in the community—on top of local schools, public buildings, businesses, and non-profits. The clean energy generated by these neighborhood host sites goes directly toward helping low-income households and underserved customers save money through the Expanded Solar Access Program (ESAP).
Here is a breakdown of how CBSR works, who actually benefits, how host sites are picked, and what it all means for communities across both Northern and Southern Nevada.
How the CBSR Program Works
Community Based Solar Resources are at the heart of NV Energy’s push to bring clean energy to people who can’t put panels on their own roofs. Unlike traditional rooftop solar or private solar subscriptions, CBSR projects are built, owned, and run directly by the utility—right inside local neighborhoods.
Here is a closer look at how it all comes together behind the scenes:
Utility Ownership and Maintenance
NV Energy handles the heavy lifting—handling the design, construction, ownership, and ongoing maintenance of each solar site. Host organizations (like local schools, city buildings, businesses, or non-profits) simply supply the physical space. That space might be a roof, a patch of land, or a parking lot turned into a shaded solar canopy. Because the utility pays for everything, host sites get clean energy infrastructure without the massive upfront costs or maintenance headaches.
Built Local, Connected Local
These solar setups are intentionally kept small—typically capped around 1 megawatt—and connect directly to the local power grid. By scattering smaller solar installations throughout cities and towns rather than building one massive plant out in the desert, clean power is generated right where people actually use it.
Where the Power Actually Goes
Here is the key difference: power from a CBSR site isn’t tied to individual subscribers panel-by-panel. Instead, the electricity feeds directly into the local grid to power the Expanded Solar Access Program (ESAP). This allows eligible low-income and underserved customers to receive discounted solar rates on their monthly bills, zero panel installation required.
What Host Sites Get Out of It
Organizations that host these panels get to play a direct role in powering their local community. On top of the sustainability recognition, hosts often get practical perks—like brand-new covered parking structures built with solar roofs. NV Energy may also offer modest compensation for using the space.
Driven by Community Input
Selecting host sites isn’t just an internal utility decision. The process often includes public nomination periods where local organizations can apply, along with community voting to help pick the best spots. The goal is simple: put solar projects where they do the most good for the neighborhood and the grid alike.
The Bottom Line
CBSR pairs utility-funded solar projects on community land with a targeted savings program (ESAP) to lower energy bills for households that need it most. It’s a practical, shared approach to making Nevada’s clean energy transition work for everyone.
For more details about solar savings & incentives, explore our 2026 guides on Nevada’s Expanded Solar Access Program, Group-Buy Solar Programs, and Selling Solar Excess Power.
The Engine Behind the Savings: Connection to ESAP
Community Based Solar Resources don’t operate off in a vacuum. Their main mission is to serve as the local engine for NV Energy’s Expanded Solar Access Program (ESAP)—the initiative that actually translates those neighborhood solar panels into real savings on monthly electric bills.
Here is how CBSR and ESAP fit together to bring clean energy down to earth:
What ESAP Actually Delivers
ESAP is built specifically for people who have historically been left out of the solar movement—especially lower-income households, renters, and families who can’t drop thousands on private rooftop panels. Qualified participants get electricity sourced from clean solar energy at a discounted rate compared to standard utility charges. No roof assessments, no homeownership required, and zero upfront financing.
How CBSR Fits into the Equation
Think of ESAP as the vehicle and CBSR as one of its key power sources. While massive utility-scale solar farms produce a lot of the heavy volume, neighborhood CBSR projects bring distributed, local clean energy directly into the communities being served. Combining power from both large solar farms and local CBSR setups is what allows NV Energy to offer those lower rates.
Eligibility, Limits, and the Lottery System
Because ESAP offers a direct rate discount, space in the program is capped by region each year in both Northern and Southern Nevada.
- Who qualifies: Eligibility generally focuses on residential households earning at or below a specific percentage of the Area Median Income (AMI), along with certain qualifying non-profits and small businesses.
- High demand: Because program capacity is finite, NV Energy uses a lottery system to select participants whenever applications outstrip available slots.
What the Rate Discount Looks Like
Instead of paying standard utility rates, ESAP participants pay a discounted program energy rate. In practice, this typically cuts the energy supply portion of a participant’s bill by anywhere from a few percent up to 9–10%, providing steady savings without ever having to touch or maintain solar hardware.
Why Tying CBSR to ESAP Matters
If CBSR solar setups weren’t explicitly attached to ESAP, all that clean energy would just get dumped into NV Energy’s general power grid and disappear into the mix. By linking these neighborhood solar projects directly to ESAP, the utility ensures that the financial benefits go straight to the households that need them most.
The Takeaway
CBSR provides the local solar power, and ESAP delivers the savings. Together, they turn neighborhood host sites into a practical tool for energy equity across Nevada.
Benefits for Host Sites Participating in the Community Based Solar Resources (CBSR) Program
Organizations that step up to host a Community Based Solar Resource get a solid mix of public visibility, physical property upgrades, and meaningful community impact—all without spending a single dime of their own money.
Here is a closer look at what host organizations stand to gain:
Zero Upfront Costs or Upkeep Headaches
The biggest draw for host sites is simple financial ease. NV Energy takes care of everything: designing, building, owning, and maintaining the solar setups. Host organizations simply provide the location. Because the utility handles the long-term upkeep, hosts don’t have to worry about maintenance costs, equipment failures, or system management.
Free Property Upgrades
In many cases, CBSR projects are designed as solar carports over existing parking lots. This gives host sites functional covered parking that keeps cars shaded from the desert sun while generating clean power overhead. Other setups turn unused rooftops or vacant ground space into productive assets, adding real, day-to-day value to the property.
Public Recognition and Visibility
NV Energy regularly highlights host sites across its website, press releases, social media, and on-site signage. Having your organization’s name attached to a local solar project builds strong public goodwill. For schools, non-profits, city facilities, and local businesses, it’s a great way to showcase a genuine commitment to sustainability.
Potential Financial Perks
While hosting isn’t designed as a massive windfall, NV Energy offers flexible arrangements that can include nominal financial compensation or specific site upgrades like solar carports. Even modest payments can sweeten the deal for participating organizations.
Real Alignment with Community Goals
By providing space for a solar site, hosts play a direct role in lowering energy bills for local renters, lower-income families, and underserved neighbors through ESAP. For mission-driven organizations, it’s a tangible way to drive environmental equity right in their own backyard.
Putting it Together
CBSR host sites get a win-win package: utility-funded solar builds, free property upgrades, positive recognition, and the satisfaction of helping their local community save money. For organizations looking to lead by example, hosting offers an easy, low-risk way to make a lasting impact with solar.
How Sites Are Selected
Picking the right spots for Community Based Solar Resources isn’t just about finding empty space—it’s about balancing grid needs, construction logistics, and real neighborhood input. NV Energy uses a step-by-step process built around nominations, technical scoring, and customer voting to pick winning host sites.
Here is how potential locations move from an idea on paper to panels on the roof:
Nomination Windows
When a new round of CBSR builds opens up, NV Energy launches a public nomination period. Local businesses, non-profits, school districts, and city agencies can submit their properties as candidate host sites. Application forms ask for basic property details, available space, proof of ownership or authorization, and a statement showing local support. This open call gives a diverse mix of community organizations a seat at the table.
Scoring and Shortlisting
Once nominations are in, NV Energy evaluates each property against a set of key criteria:
- Property Suitability: Is there enough unshaded roof, land, or parking space?
- Grid Connection: Can the local power grid handle the new solar capacity smoothly?
- Community Alignment: Is the site close to neighborhoods with higher numbers of low-income or underserved households who qualify for ESAP savings?
After scoring the applications, the utility narrows the pool down to a shortlist of top candidates.
Customer Voting
One of the coolest parts of the CBSR setup is giving local residents a direct say. Residential customers with an email on file get invited to vote on the shortlisted locations. This democratic step lets the community help decide which projects move forward first, prioritizing spots that hold special local meaning.
Final Approvals and Construction
Once voting wraps up, top-ranked sites move through NV Energy’s internal design teams and head over to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) for final regulatory review and approval. Once approved, engineering and construction planning get fully underway.
Goals Behind the Process
Combining technical requirements with public votes ensures these projects aren’t just built where it’s easy, but where they do the most good. Priority goes to locations that strengthen grid reliability, serve historically overlooked neighborhoods, and stand as proud landmarks for local clean energy.
In the Short
The CBSR selection process is deliberately hands-on. Nominations open the door, scoring filters for technical fit, customer votes bring in community preference, and regulators give final oversight. The result is a network of solar projects chosen both for their energy output and their direct benefit to everyday Nevadans.
Examples of CBSR Projects in Nevada
While Nevada’s Community Based Solar Resources program is continuously expanding, several real-world examples and shortlisted locations highlight how this model operates in practice across both Southern and Northern Nevada.
Here is a look at what these projects actually look like on the ground:
Mojave High School (North Las Vegas)
A standout example of CBSR in action is the Mojave High School Solar Project. Built using solar carports outfitted with over 1,000 panels, this installation generates hundreds of megawatt-hours of clean electricity every year. NV Energy owns and maintains the system, feeding power straight into the local grid to support households enrolled in the Expanded Solar Access Program. On top of generating clean energy, it provides much-needed shaded parking for teachers and staff—a huge day-to-day win for the school.
Civic and Public Sites Across Nevada
Past nomination and voting rounds have brought in a diverse mix of public-serving locations.
- Southern Nevada: Candidate sites have included municipal facilities in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas (like city halls, justice centers, and public parks), Clark County recreation and senior centers, and university campus spaces.
- Northern Nevada: Shortlisted spots have included locations like Carson City Public Works and key Washoe County facilities.
These sites were deliberately picked because they put clean energy right in the heart of the community.
Why These Locations Fit the Model
Schools, parks, senior centers, and city campuses are ideal hosts for a few key reasons: they feature large, open parking lots or roofs, sit directly inside residential neighborhoods, and align naturally with public sustainability goals. Parking canopy designs are especially popular because they double as weather protection and shade in the desert heat.
Scale and Character
Compared to massive solar farms out in the open desert, individual CBSR setups are intentionally modest in size. Their true power isn’t sheer capacity—it’s their local presence, grid connection where demand is highest, and direct tie-in to lowering utility bills for ESAP participants. Every completed project adds clean power to the grid while giving neighborhoods a tangible, visible piece of Nevada’s solar transition.
What this shows
From high school parking lots in North Las Vegas to municipal centers across Northern Nevada, CBSR projects are designed to blend seamlessly into everyday community spaces. Whether already generating power or advancing through public voting, these examples show a winning formula: utility-funded solar built on community land that delivers real savings to the people who need them most.
Who Benefits and Who Can Participate
The Community Based Solar Resources (CBSR) framework and the Expanded Solar Access Program (ESAP) are specifically structured to open doors for everyday Nevadans and local organizations that have historically been priced out or shut out of rooftop solar.
Here is a breakdown of how different groups participate and benefit across the state:
Primary Beneficiaries: ESAP Customers
Low-income residential households are at the very center of the program.
- Income requirements: Eligibility generally targets households earning at or below 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) based on federal HUD guidelines.
- No barriers: Qualified participants lock in lower energy rates without needing to buy equipment, own their home, or worry about roof conditions.
- Fair access: Because space in the program is capped by region each year, NV Energy runs a lottery whenever applications exceed available capacity.
Past regulatory updates have also opened enrollment to specific categories like disadvantaged local businesses, non-profits, and “eligible premise” residential properties that physically cannot host panels. Since allocations shift over time, checking NV Energy’s current guidelines is always recommended.
Host Organizations
Local businesses, school districts, municipal entities, non-profits, and civic hubs with usable space can step up as host sites during open nomination periods. Hosts don’t need to meet income requirements; their main role is offering up physical real estate for utility-owned solar builds. In exchange, they get public recognition, zero-cost property upgrades (like shaded solar parking structures), and a direct way to serve their local community.
Broader Community Benefits
Even Nevadans who don’t directly participate in ESAP gain from having more distributed solar power feeding into the local grid. Placing arrays on neighborhood high schools, senior centers, and public parks creates visible landmarks for clean energy and offers practical educational value for students and residents alike.
Who Typically Cannot Participate Directly
If you already have private rooftop solar panels installed on your home, or if your household income falls outside program limits, you generally cannot receive the ESAP rate discount. The program is intentionally targeted rather than universal, ensuring limited capacity goes to those who truly cannot install their own systems.
The Practical Upshot
CBSR and ESAP work together to bring solar savings to renters, low-income families, and underserved neighborhoods while giving local organizations a risk-free way to give back. Eligible residents apply for ESAP bill discounts, while property owners apply to host the actual panels. Checking NV Energy’s official program pages remains the best way to confirm current eligibility and catch open application windows.
Limitations and How CBSR Differs from Traditional Community Solar
Community Based Solar Resources fill a crucial gap in Nevada, but they don’t work like the classic community solar programs you might see in other states. Understanding these key differences and operational limits helps set realistic expectations.
Here is how Nevada’s CBSR model compares to open-market community solar:
Utility Ownership vs. Subscriber Shares
In traditional community solar, a third-party developer builds a massive solar farm, and everyday customers buy subscriptions or shares of its output. Subscribers then earn monthly bill credits based on their personal share of generated power. Under CBSR, NV Energy owns, operates, and maintains the entire setup. There are no individual “panel shares” or subscriptions sold to the public; instead, all generated power feeds directly into the grid to support the ESAP rate discount as a whole.
Targeted Equity vs. Open Enrollment
Classic community solar is typically open to any resident or business that wants to sign up to offset their carbon footprint. Nevada’s CBSR-backed program (ESAP) is strictly capacity-limited and targeted primarily at low-income households and underserved groups. Because space is capped each year, NV Energy runs a lottery when demand outstrips available spots, meaning open enrollment isn’t guaranteed.
Direct Discount vs. Bill Credit Calculations
With standard community solar, participants pay a recurring subscription fee to a solar developer and receive solar energy credits on their utility bill. With ESAP, there are no subscription fees or multi-layered credit math. Enrolled customers simply pay a lower program energy rate directly on their NV Energy bill, resulting in an automatic, guaranteed discount on their power usage.
Neighborhood Siting vs. Remote Solar Farms
Traditional community solar projects are often built as large-scale solar farms out in rural areas where land is cheap. CBSR projects are intentionally smaller—typically capped around 1 megawatt—and placed directly inside local neighborhoods on schools, public parks, and civic buildings. This places clean power generation right where the energy is consumed.
Key Limitations to Keep in Mind
- Capacity caps: Program size is limited by region each year, so not every applicant gets in right away.
- Strict eligibility: Rate discounts are reserved for qualified low-income households and specific program categories.
- No host energy ownership: Host sites provide space and gain public perks, but they do not own the solar power or sell subscriptions.
- Equity over market competition: The system prioritizes targeted bill relief for underserved communities over an open, commercial solar marketplace.
Key Takeaway
CBSR is a utility-managed, equity-focused model rather than an open community solar marketplace. It expands clean energy benefits to residents who can’t install rooftop panels, delivering savings through a structured, capacity-limited program rather than public share purchases. For many Nevadans, it remains the primary route to solar savings without private ownership—as long as they qualify and land a spot in the program.
Final Advice for Nevada Residents and Potential Hosts
Community Based Solar Resources and the Expanded Solar Access Program together create a practical pathway for more Nevadans to benefit from solar energy—especially those who cannot install panels on their own roofs. Making the most of these programs starts with clear next steps and realistic expectations.
Here is how residents and local organizations can take action:
For Eligible Customers Interested in ESAP
Keep an eye on NV Energy’s Expanded Solar Access Program page for upcoming application windows.
- Check eligibility early: Qualification typically centers on income (generally at or below 80% of Area Median Income) and specific household criteria.
- Prep your documents: Keep proof of income and utility account details ready so you can apply as soon as a window opens.
- Keep expectations grounded: Because program capacity is capped, applying during an open window does not guarantee a spot—a lottery determines final enrollment if demand outstrips supply.
For Organizations Considering Hosting a CBSR Site
Watch for open nomination announcements on NV Energy’s CBSR webpage.
- Prepare property details: Have key information ready in advance, including total available space (rooftop, parking lot, or open ground), proof of ownership or authorization, and a brief statement showing community support.
- Know the benefits: Hosting offers strong public recognition, zero-cost property upgrades like shaded carports, and a direct way to support neighborhood energy equity—all without the financial burden of owning or maintaining hardware.
- Ideal candidates: School districts, local municipalities, non-profits, and businesses with large, unshaded properties make natural host sites.
What to Keep in Perspective
CBSR is not a replacement for private rooftop solar for those who can afford it, nor is it an open-market subscription program. It is a targeted, utility-owned initiative built specifically to expand clean energy access through ESAP. Financial savings arrive as a reduced energy rate on your bill rather than individual panel credits, and strict capacity limits mean not every applicant will be selected in a given year.
Staying Current
Program rules, nomination schedules, and application windows shift over time. Official NV Energy program pages remain the most reliable source for up-to-date dates and requirements. While local installers and advocacy groups can offer helpful guidance, always verify details through official utility channels before making decisions.
Putting it Together
Whether you are a resident looking to cut monthly utility costs without adding panels to your roof or an organization ready to host a clean energy landmark, the path forward is simple: monitor current program status, gather your information, and apply as soon as windows open. CBSR may not cover everyone, but for qualifying families and participating host sites, it offers a tangible way to share the benefits of solar power across Nevada.
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