Making Solar Energy More Economical

Lindsay Allen, Sam Garber, Carmen Montes de Oca, Jake Zulueta

E102 - 019H, NC State University

Grand Challenge

Marketing

Existing technology/Design

Solution Brief

Next steps

Population/Audience

We can market our solution to end users as a community supported resilience and savings program. Our marketing plan should leverage the existing community solar programs in Seattle , highlighting the benefits of free electricity access to help pay for other important necessities. We would get the word out by collaborating with existing community organizations, the utility, and local government officials. We will focus on the key statistic that our solution helps reduce the disproportionately high energy burden that marginalized groups face, specifically noting racial disparities. We will emphasize the dual benefit of cost savings and emergency preparedness provided by the community charging hubs and portable batteries.

Our proposed solution directly addresses the Engineering Grand Challenge Make Solar Energy Economical. We are using community solar charging stations and portable backup chargers for emergency use. Our project utilizes existing technologies to bring affordable, clean energy access to low income residents in Seattle who face a disproportionately high energy burden. This approach makes solar energy a more practical and accessible solution for households that cannot install rooftop solar. It promotes energy equity and resilience against power outages.

Currently, there are community solar programs designed to lessen the economic burden for low income families. Our solution builds on those concepts with the integration of portable emergency battery packs that residents can check out and use for outages or extreme weather conditions. The solution builds on existing technologies such as solar arrays, virtual net metering, and commercial lithium-ion battery systems like those used in medical backup and disaster response. Community solar not only grants marginalized communities access to energy, it gives them access to clean energy, utilizing both a utility grid and charging hub to provide strong LiFePO₄ chemistry to remain fully charged. By leveraging established software and library style checkout systems, we can track battery availability to ensure access to the community. The combined technology makes clean energy more accessible and affordable, reducing energy insecurity and giving low income households a reliable source.

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Community Solar in Seattle:

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Seattle light has a community solar program in the area already and reports that 1,300 families have already joined the program, proving the willingness of the community to engage with solar energy, as well as the need for more adorable energy.

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Another leading group for community solar in the area is Washington State University. Washington State currently has 24 certified projects with 54 more pre certified, and has dedicated $17.2 in incentives to community solar programs. Washington State displays a serious concern for clean, affordable energy in the Seattle area, supporting the addition of more community solar with new battery systems and improvements.

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What would be the next steps if you continued development? Briefly describe what might be some next steps in the process.

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The major next steps for our charging stations are to further improve the technology and funding, and expand the project across the country. We hope to work with engineers to continue to improve the overall efficiency of the solar panels. We also hope to implement more research into solar energy to allow for cheap yet highly efficient panels.

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We also hope to further our knowledge of the low-income communities through more research and polling. Ideally if we can discover what the highest energy uses are in these households, we can develop new public solar technologies for said uses. We also hope to expand the project to other cities, like Seattle, with large homeless and low-income multifamily household populations. We would love to continue that expansion to entire states and eventually the entire country. But starting with the major cities that are in most need.

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As we expand, we would like to work with government agencies and officials to obtain funding for the project. Due to the fact that it is accessible to the entire public, we believe that the government should at least help fund a portion of the project.

Shortcomings/Feasibility

Works Cited

Challenge Statement

Visual Representation

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Energy Burdens in Seattle. https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/aceee-01_energy_burden_-_seattle.pdf.

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). City Energy Burdens: Data Update. https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/data_update_-_city_energy_burdens_0.pdf.

King County Regional Homelessness Authority. 2024 Point-in-Time Count: King County. May 2024, https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Point-in-Time-Count-2024_King-County_final.pdf.

King County Regional Homelessness Authority. 2024 Point-in-Time Count: Summary and FAQ. June 2024, https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/KCRHA_PIT-24_Summary-FAQ.pdf.

National Academy of Engineering. "Grand Challenges for Engineering: Make Solar Energy Economical." National Academy of Engineering (NAE), www.engineeringchallenges.org/challenges/solar.aspx

Seattle City Light. Buildings and Energy – Community Solar. City of Seattle, https://www.seattle.gov/environment/environmental-progress/buildings-and-energy

Seattle Public Utilities. "Utility Discount Program." City of Seattle, www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/discounts-and-incentives/utility-discount-program.

Washington State University Energy Program. Community Solar Expansion Program. WSU Energy Program, https://www.energy.wsu.edu/RenewableEnergy/CommunitySolarProgram.aspx

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Target Audience/Population: Who is the target audience/population with this proposed idea? Who is impacted?

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The target population for Community solar charging stations and portable backup chargers (emergency use) is Residents of low-income, multifamily housing in Seattle, WA. Who also experience high energy consumption/burdens. However, the entire population of Seattle will be positively impacted by the charging stations. Full community access will be granted to those in need of a quick charge without having to pay for the cost of electricity.

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In the table below the number of homeless people in the Seattle plus area that are sheltered and unsheltered is shown. The solar charging stations will work to provide all of these people with free electricity. Meaning they would not have to pay for a large portion of their electricity bill and could help pay for something else important.

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While community solar paired with portable emergency battery packs offers important resilience benefits, there are several potential design shortcomings that must be considered for feasibility. First, managing a fleet of emergency batteries can be complex. For example, batteries degrade over time, require routine testing, and must be stored, charged, and distributed in a way that ensures reliability during actual emergencies. A community organization would need clear protocols for checkout, return, maintenance, and replacement, otherwise batteries may be unavailable, undercharged, or unusable when most needed. In a region like Seattle, limited sunlight can reduce the predictability of solar generation, especially in winter months when outages are more likely. This raises questions about whether the solar array alone could consistently charge a large inventory of portable batteries, or whether supplemental grid charging or larger storage infrastructure would be necessary. Additionally, the physical space needed for solar panels, charging hubs, and secure storage may be difficult to acquire in dense or lower-income neighborhoods. Ensuring affordability without overburdening participants, securing long-term funding for equipment replacement, and coordinating with utilities for safety and interconnection also complicate the design. Altogether, these challenges display the promising future of the design, however, its feasibility relies on thoughtful planning, strong organizational capacity, and realistic expectations about solar production and operational logistics in a cloudy, urban environment.

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Seattle's low income households experience a median energy burden of 6.0 percent , which is over three times the median burden for all Seattle households at 1.8 percent. Our design addresses the problem of energy insecurity and high energy costs for residents of low income, multifamily housing in Seattle. The solution directly benefits this target population by providing free access to clean, solar generated electricity via community charging stations and portable battery backups for emergency use. This effectively reduces their financial burden and increases their safety and communication access during outages.

Figure 1. Solution rendering generated by Gemini Pro Vision.

Our solution to this disparity between low-income households and their energy burdens is to partner with already established community solar programs and to create solar-charged portable battery packs. Residents will be able to check out these packages during emergency situations, providing clean and environmentally conscious energy sources for those who struggle to financially cope with the high energy prices in the Seattle area. These battery packs will function similar to portable chargers, but will be sourced from solar energy and be available at community charging stations, so that residents can easily access them and use them as need arises.

Figure 2. Emergency Portable Charging Stations (Generated by Gemini)

Figure 3. Count of Homeless Communities in the Greater Seattle Area

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