Expanding Access to Affordable Solar Energy at the Nevada Clean Energy Fund
Kate Adams, MBA–MS E-IPER, Class of 2025
Clean Energy Investments Fellow,
Nevada Clean Energy Fund (NCEF)
This summer, I’m working as Clean Investments Fellow at the Nevada Clean Energy Fund (NCEF). NCEF is a nonprofit dedicated to fostering a thriving, affordable, and accessible clean energy economy in Nevada. It was established by state legislation to serve as Nevada’s green bank, with the goal of building Nevada’s capacity to access and effectively implement federal clean energy and climate funds for the benefit of Nevada’s communities and the climate.
NCEF was recently awarded a $156 million federal Solar for All grant to provide rebates and low-interest loans for solar installations on homes, affordable multifamily housing, and community solar projects, with a special focus on expanding access to solar in historically underserved and disadvantaged communities. My primary role as a fellow is helping design aspects of Solar for All, such as determining rebate amounts to ensure program participants achieve target savings on their monthly utility bill and exploring the potential to increase the financial benefits of installing solar through renewable energy credit (REC) monetization.
In addition to Solar for All, I am working on several smaller projects throughout the summer. For example, I’m supporting the rollout of the Clean School Bus program, which is helping eight Nevada school districts replace diesel buses with zero-emission electric vehicles. As part of this work, I got to attend the July school transportation expo in Reno to see some EV school buses in person! I’m also helping develop a report for the small rural community of Gerlach on how to fund different potential clean energy projects, such as building energy efficiency retrofits and geothermal district heating, which has involved modeling project economics and compiling an overview of the many different state and federal financial incentives the town can leverage.
Much of NCEF’s funding comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, which has made an unprecedented amount of federal money available to expand access to clean energy. While this is really exciting, it’s also an incredibly complex task. Much of the money is earmarked to individual funds administered by a wide swathe of federal agencies, each with its own application process, eligibility criteria, and detailed implementation rules. Working at NCEF to deploy this money has really underscored how much time and effort it will take to go from legislation to actually installing new physical energy infrastructure. My experience has also highlighted the important role that organizations like NCEF play in enabling resource-constrained local governments, communities, and public entities like school districts to access clean energy, given just how much time and expertise it takes to navigate the financial resources available.
As a result of the money flowing into clean energy, NCEF is rapidly expanding to support implementation of Solar for All and numerous other programs, such as Residential Energy Upgrade Program (RE-UP), which offers technical assistance and affordable financing for homeowners to implement clean energy measures. It’s been really exciting to witness the organization scale, as well as to be at the forefront of deploying new federal funds to advance the energy transition this summer.
