National Storage Affiliates Trust Seals Deal With Solar Landscape
If you have a lot of buildings that provide self-storage services, might as well make some solar-powered money.
There are many ways tech can pay off in CRE. You might better control power usage in a building or bring improved data analysis to investment strategies. Then again, you could take part in the energy industry and let someone put solar panels on your roofs to generate power.
That’s what National Storage Affiliates Trust (NSA) — a self-storage REIT — just did with commercial and community solar developer Solar Landscape. The latter will put solar installments on the roofs of National Storage’s buildings. That will mean about 8.5 million square feet in space and as estimated 100 megawatts at least of power capacity.
The deal is exclusive and gives Solar Landscape access to 1,000 NSAT properties in 42 states and Puerto Rico. The operator looks to provide power to homes and businesses at a discount through the community solar model. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the term refers to community solar as “any solar project or purchasing program, within a geographic area, in which the benefits flow to multiple customers such as individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and other groups.”
In most cases, customers benefit from energy generated by solar panels at an off-site array. They pay for a share of the electricity, usually in the form of a monthly subscription fee. A local utility pays the community solar project for the energy. Each subscriber gets a portion as a dollar-value credit applied to a monthly electric bill. According to the Department of Energy, there is at least one community solar project in each of the 43 states and the District of Columbia. Of them, 19 states and D.C. have low-income requirements.
“In addition to delivering environmental benefits and lowering energy costs, the projects will create a more efficient electric grid by generating clean energy close to where it is used,” a press release said. Development has already begun on the first of the sites. NSA has no need to invest capital. Instead, Solar Landscape develops, owns, and operates the projects and makes monthly lease payments to the REIT.