In communities across the United States, people are seeking alternatives to conventional energy sources. Whether they aim to increase energy independence, hedge against rising fuel costs, cut carbon emissions, or provide jobs, people are looking to community-scale renewable energy projects for solutions. Falling costs and creative new financing models have made solar projects-including community shared solar projects-more financially feasible. This guide is a resource for those who want to develop community shared solar projects, from community organizers or solar energy advocates to government officials or utility managers. By exploring the range of incentives and policies while providing examples of operational community shared solar projects, this guide will help communities plan and implement successful energy projects. In addition, by highlighting some policy best practices, this guide suggests changes in the regulatory landscape that could significantly boost community shared solar installations across the nation. HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE The information in this guide is organized around three sponsorship models: utility projects, special purpose entity projects, and nonprofit projects. The guide begins with examples of the three project sponsorship models, discussing the legal and financial implications of each model. This is followed by a discussion of state policies that encourage community shared solar. The guide then reviews some of the tax and financing issues that impact community shared solar projects. While the guide cannot offer legal or tax advice, the authors hope to provide an outline of the legal hurdles that every project organizer should consider. Finally, Section 6, Getting Started provides readers with practical tools and tips for planning their own projects. The Appendices provide a more detailed comparison of business structures suitable for special purpose entities pursuing solar projects and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council's Model Community Renewables Program Rules. As with the first version of this guide, the case studies have been provided by the program sponsors or developers and have not been independently verified by the authors or by NREL. Please contact the program sponsor for further information. This guide cannot possibly describe all available incentives or cite all the examples of community shared solar efforts nationwide. For information regarding the most recent developments, see Section 7, Resources.
Metapopulations are often managed as a single contiguous population despite the spatial structure underlying their local and regional dynamics. Disturbances from human activities can also be spatially structured with mortality impacts concentrated to just a few local populations among the aggregate. Scale transitions between local and regional processes can generate emergent properties whereby the whole system can fail to recover as quickly as expected for an equivalent single population. Here, we draw on theory and empirical case studies to ask: what is the consequence of spatially structured ecological and disturbance processes on metapopulation recoveries? We suggest that exploring this question could help address knowledge gaps for managing metapopulations including: Why do some metapopulations recover quickly while others remain collapsed? And, what risks are unaccounted for when metapopulations are managed at aggregate scales? First, we used model simulations to examine how scale transitions among ecological and disturbance conditions interact to generate emergent metapopulation recovery outcomes. In general, we found that the spatial structure of disturbance was a strong determinant of recovery outcomes. Specifically, disturbances that unevenly impacted local populations consistently generated the slowest recoveries and highest conservation risks. Ecological conditions that dampened metapopulation recoveries included low dispersal, variable local demography, sparsely connected habitat networks, and spatially and temporally correlated stochastic processes. Second, we illustrate the unexpected challenges of managing metapopulations by examining the recoveries of three USA federally listed endangered species: Florida Everglade snail kites, California and Alaska sea otters, and Snake River Chinook salmon. Overall, our results show the pivotal role of spatial structure in metapopulation recoveries whereby the interplay between local and regional processes shapes the resilience of the whole system. With this understanding, we provide guidelines for resource managers tasked with conserving and managing metapopulations and identify opportunities for research to support the application of metapopulation theory to real‐world challenges.
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