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Provided by: Institute for Local Self-Reliance |Published on: September 29, 2025
Graphs/Tables
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Synopsis
This resource from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance is a data dashboard to track the progress of community solar programs in the United States.
Students will explore interactive maps and graphs shoiwng data about the per capita capacity, overall capacity, number of projects, and average output per state.
Region: United States, New Jersey, Oregon, Connecticut, New York, Minnesota, Maine, Hawai'i, California, Washington, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, Alaska, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire
The written portions of this resource are brief, allowing for more time to explore the interactive components.
The interactive graphs and maps in this resource are user-friendly, and students will enjoy exploring them.
Prerequisites
Students should have a basic understanding of solar photovoltaic panels and their benefits.
Differentiation & Implementation
If students are not familiar with community solar, teachers can click on the term in the introductory paragraph to go to a page with a more in-depth definition of it.
To have students practice translating quantitative data into a written summary, teachers can have each student focus on a state and write a few sentences describing the status of community solar in that state.
To highlight the connection to climate change, teachers can discuss the impacts of fossil fuel use on the climate and emphasize that solar energy is an alternative method that reduces the use of fossil fuels.
Teachers can make connections to Sustainable Development Goal 7, Affordable and Clean Energy. Teachers can highlight that this tracking emphasizes both pieces of this goal; only tracking states that have community solar programs that are not monopolized by utility companies that charge a high premium for this service.
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