About
What is the US Community Energy Website (USCEW)?
The USCEW is a centralized location for sharing information about community energy projects across the United States. It began as a compilation of publicly available information on renewable energy projects (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydropower) with a “group” or “community” element. Now that the website and associated database are publicly available, we hope people with direct knowledge of projects will add/correct information to keep the database growing and current.
Mission
To help people interested in starting a community renewable energy (CRE) project by providing a centralized knowledge base of existing projects and contacts, and to support CRE research that will reduce barriers to and improve opportunities for CRE.
Who created the USCEW?
The USCEW is a collaborative project developed by researchers at the University of Maine:
Project Director: Dr. Sharon Klein, Assistant Professor, School of Economics
Data Collection: Stephanie Coffey, M.A. Economics
Data Collection Assistant: Cameron Goodwin, B.S. Economics
Website/Database Development Supervisor: Dr. Silvia Nittel, Associate Professor, School of Computing and Information Science
Website/Dabatase Development: Katrina Stinson and Katelyn Manzo, Undergraduate Research Assistants, Computer Science
Support Staff: Racquel Bozzelli and Rafael Mata, Undergraduate Research Assistants, School of Economics
The USCEW is supported with generous funding from the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project 0230040.

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If you have questions or comments about the USCEW, please email communityenergyus@gmail.com, or fill out the contact form below.
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What types of projects are listed in the USCEW?
The USCEW lists renewable energy projects with a “group” or “community” element. This includes the following main categories (which are further defined on the Glossary page):
  • Bulk Purchase Groups (including among others, Solarize & solar cooperatives)
  • Electricity Buying Groups (including among others, Community Choice Aggregation)
  • Green Planned Housing Developments
  • Intentional Sustainable Communities
  • Multi-family Residences
  • Municipal Projects
  • Community-Serving Non-Profit Organizations
  • K-12 Schools
  • Shared Wind Farms
  • Solar Farms
  • Solar Friendly Communities
  • Tribal Projects
  • University/College Projects
  • Other
    • These categories are defined in part by the project host (where the installation is located), the owner, and the financial model for the project. We originally collected data on around 300 community energy efficiency and conservation projects as well. However, it became quickly apparent that a narrower focus was needed due to time and resource limitations. Therefore, the USCEW does not include these energy efficiency/conservation projects, but the list is available upon request and may be included in future versions of the website. There is also a solar focus to the USCEW because, even after narrowing our focus to renewable energy, it became apparent we needed to narrow our focus more (again due to time and resource constraints), and community solar data were more readily accessible at the time. However, we encourage people with knowledge of all renewable energy projects to add information so all renewable energy technologies are represented accurately.
    Disclaimer
    Although the research and development team has taken and will continue to take all available steps to ensure the accuracy of projects they have added/continue to add to the USCEW, accuracy is subject to the data sources used for each project (which are listed in the project information). Most of our data collection efforts occurred in 2014-2015. In addition, we do not check the accuracy of projects added to the USCEW by others, except to look them over for obvious errors prior to accepting them for inclusion in the website. Therefore, we suggest following up with project contacts to confirm data accuracy, where necessary.