San Francisco, Calif. — National CORE (National CORE), one of the nation’s largest and most respected nonprofit community builders, will develop and construct 2.3 megawatts of solar energy for several affordable housing properties. This program will provide clean, reliable energy and reduce or eliminate energy costs for more than 5,000 National CORE residents.
“National CORE is committed to our residents’ quality of life and the affordability of our homes,” said Dan Lorraine, Senior Vice President of Property Management for National CORE. “There are a lot of reasons to go solar – cost savings for low-income residents, a commitment to a sustainable future, increased value for our investors. At the end of the day, it’s a good business decision and the right thing to do.”
National CORE has contracted with Everyday Energy and Omni Energy, California’s most experienced developers of multifamily affordable housing solar, to develop, install and finance the solar projects. Everyday/Omni offers Solar Access Platform across multiple affordable housing programs and markets designed to provide the benefits of solar directly to owners and residents through solar rebates, tax equity and debt.
“We looked at several other developers and could not find another team that had the experience and track record,” said Lorraine. “Their history of implementing a no-cost, savings solution was key in our decision making.”
With more than 10 years of industry experience, Everyday Energy has developed 10 times more solar PV (photovoltaic energy) than the nearest competitor and championed the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (“SOMAH”) Program that provides up to $1 billion in incentives for solar on affordable housing in California.
“There is a sense that solar is for rich people, that’s just not right,” said Scott Sarem, Everyday Energy’s CEO. “We have created a platform that provides the same no-cost, no-money-down solution for affordable housing residents that more affluent people enjoy through residential solar. Our mission is to make the process easy, seamless and affordable to install solar and save money.”
In addition to the economic benefits, these systems will remove 50,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, the equivalent of planting two million trees and will provide job training across multiple communities.
“It’s clear from the latest round of devasting fires that climate change is now,” said Tanguy Serra, Omni Energy’s CFO. “Unfortunately, we see the impacts of climate change affecting the most vulnerable among us. If we want to see sustainable change, we have to serve all communities and leave no one behind physically or economically.”
All projects will be installed in 2019.