Aug. 4th, 2026
By: Anne Fischer
The recently passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act aims to expand affordable housing, yet with rising costs, keeping housing affordable is a challenge for multifamily property owners.
With the rising cost of housing and electricity, solar on multifamily rooftops makes a lot of sense, Rob Crauderueff, CEO and founder of Crauderueff Solar told pv magazine USA.
Property owners face rising insurance costs and operating expenses, including but not limited to energy prices. To keep housing affordable, rents can’t rise to cover those costs, so one solution is to dial in costs and solar is doing that for many property owners.
“Opportunity for scale exists, especially in urban areas where it’s very efficient to have solar on multifamily buildings.” Crauderueff said. “By industry standards, these are small systems so they can be built relatively fast – but the impact is large”.
Advantages of solar on multifamily homes for property owners include:
- Reduces energy costs, freeing up capital to be invested elsewhere
- Energy savings can be passed on to tenants, making housing more affordable
- Property owners may still qualify for federal investment tax credits as well as local and state incentives, helping to defray the initial investment
With federal incentives reduced, state and local incentives become even more important and are helping projects pencil out for affordable housing providers.
Crauderueff said New York has several mechanisms including grants, tariffs and financing. The NY-Sun’s Megawatt Block Program, for example, offers contractors $1 to $2 per watt as an incentive to put solar on multifamily affordable housing, depending on size and location. One stipulation is that the incentive amount the solar contractor receives must be disclosed in the customer contract, so that savings be passed along to the property owner.
Connecticut offers funding for low-income and affordable housing through its Solar Marketplace Assistance Program Plus (Solar MAP+), managed by the Connecticut Green Bank. Crauderueff noted that Maryland also has grant programs as well as financing through the Montgomery County Green Bank.
[Read more about green banks here.]
Community solar legislation is also opening up markets in some states for certain types of affordable housing, Crauderueff said. He described community solar as “the low hanging fruit,” because the buildings can “go solar” simply by subscribing to an off-site solar project. Housing authorities in New Jersey, for example, have signed up for community solar, providing credits directly to tenants’ electric bills.
Selling credits to tenants is another way to go, Crauderueff said. “Have solar campaigns with tenants for assets the property owner owns. The property owner is the power producer and the tenants the beneficiaries.”
These state and local tax structures become more important as the industry learns to navigate the new financial landscape without federal tax credits, Crauderueff noted. States have the ability to offer different mechanisms to help solar projects make financial sense and keep affordable houses affordable, he said.
One example of where solar on multifamily housing is working is in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. Crauderueff Solar acted as the owner’s representative, supporting the projects from inception through completion while ensuring that the project took advantage of available incentives. To take advantage of the tax credits for non-profits, Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens (CCBQ) set up its own Special Purpose Entity, the Laudato Si Corporation (LSC), to own and operate the solar assets.
Solar makes sense from both a financial and mission perspective for LSC, David Downs, senior vice president of Catholic Charities Progress of Peoples Development (POP) Corporation, the affordable housing developer for CCBQ, told pv magazine USA. Downs leads LSC’s efforts to advance solar across its portfolio. He explained that LSC is named for Pope Francis’ 2015 letter, Laudato Si, which outlined his environmental concerns, including climate change.
Taking advantage of opportunities of scale, LSC and Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens installed 17 separate solar projects on regulated affordable housing rooftops, designed to generate 1.5 GWh annually to offset an average of 45% of on-site electric load. Under LSC, the income from the solar projects is re-invested to generate deeper energy savings across the housing portfolio.
LSC received its initial investment through Catholic Charities POP Development Corporation, “knowing that up to 50% will be recouped through federal incentives,” Downs said. He said LSC and affordable housing properties will benefit directly from energy savings from day one. From there, he said LSC will monetize the savings and put it back into the building, providing benefits to residents in terms of future upgrades focused on energy efficiency and resiliency.
In keeping with the mission of LSC, CCBQ aims to provide an sustainability education platform in the buildings with rooftop solar, which Downs said contributes to the cycle of developing and promoting renewable energy.
While insurance, electricity, natural gas prices and other costs are rising, rents on affordable housing can’t be raised in parallel. Solar on multifamily housing can take many forms but what is most important, Crauderueff said is that it saves money and provides a hedge on electric price increases, and with the help of local, state and federal incentives, is keeping the affordable in affordable housing.
Read the original story via pv magazine- Solar keeps the affordable in affordable housing