The Sisters of Charity of New York, a Catholic mission group that has spearheaded healthcare and affordable housing developments in the state, called on the power of the sun to reduce energy costs for elderly tenants in a Staten Island housing complex.
PV consultancy firm Crauderueff Solar helped the mission group develop an adequate solar system while still working within the narrow financial margins of rent-stabilized housing. The result is two unique arrays: one behind the meter, the other in front; one net-metered and the other a community solar project.
Solar Power World spoke to Xiomara Pedraza with Sisters of Charity and Rob Crauderueff, CEO and founder of Crauderueff Solar, about bringing this solar project to fruition.
SPW: Why did you want to involve solar in this facility?
Pedraza: I think a part of our mission was in recognition of environmental realities to decarbonize our portfolio, and renewable energy was a part of that strategy. In affordable housing, we do try to minimize utility expenses because we’re working with slim margins. Oftentimes, rents are affordable, so whatever we can do to keep the cost pressures down so that we can run the housing efficiently and make sure that we can keep the building affordable is really the goal.
How was Crauderueff Solar brought in for this project?
Crauderueff: We’re a technical assistance provider partner with organizations such as Sisters of Charity. A lot of the excitement around our work was based on the ability to implement a model. Where Sisters of Charity could be on multiple sides of a deal in terms of being an off-taker, the leaseholder and the property owner of the PPA, but then also being able to generate its own source of income — that can be very powerful for not-for-profits. We were able to help Sisters of Charity adapt to their context and really make their own power.
What makes this project unique?
Sisters of Charity commissioned a rooftop solar array on a Staten Island apartment providing power to rent-stabilized tenants. Credit: Crauderueff Solar
Pedraza: We did set up a third-party entity called Charity Solar, to own the systems. So we have a non-profit subsidiary that’s owning the system and then the building owner is separate and that takes the liability and some of the other risks off the building itself, which is helpful. On the non-profit sustainability standpoint, we’re also able to use it as an income source.
Crauderueff: Something that is very interesting about this project is being able to capture federal and state incentives. We received them for both the behind-the-meter and the front-of-the-meter projects, and the values are different, the qualifications for the programs are different. For example, the federal bonus tax credit provided a 20% bonus for both the in-front and the behind-the-meter projects. So, these were a total of 50% tax credit projects. They were able to utilize direct pay, so as a not-for-profit, they’re able to capitalize and monetize those benefits.
New York’s solar grant program provided a $1.60/W incentive for behind the meter, $2/W on affordable housing. We’re able to really look at stacking different incentives so that it makes sense to optimize the systems. It’d be much more aggressive than just a net-metered system.
How is the system running now that it’s been on for a bit?
Pedraza: It took a while to work with the utility company to get everything rolling, but I’m told the tenants are going to be receiving their savings on their bills starting in August 2026, and they should be receiving a 10% discount, which is great. We’ve seen on the net solar portion some savings there, which has been good.
For the community solar portion, are the tenants technically subscribing to the system?
Pedraza: Yes. Rob introduced us to Power Market, who’s managing the subscriptions for us, and they did an outreach campaign in the fall. We got more subscriptions than we were expecting. So, it’s 75 units total in the building, and we got over 50 tenants subscribed. There was a lot of interest.
What larger lessons are you taking away from the experience?
Crauderueff: I think one of the opportunities of working with Sisters of Charity is that it really shows that a collaboration can be very effective to build capacity — to help to set an organizational framework, a financial framework — between a solar consultancy and a housing not-for-profit. You really need both sets of expertise to pull off a project like this, and certainly Sisters of Charity rolled up their sleeves. We’re merging worlds here. The solar world, and you have building permits and interconnection and community solar and subscriptions, all of that is completely new. And on the affordable housing side, there are different agencies involved, different requirements. There are a lot of regulatory pieces in addition to the fact that Sisters of Charity had to identify how they were going to actually operationalize this. So, the combining of worlds is very important.
And a project like this shows how that can work effectively, that there’s a real need in the affordable housing landscape to reduce operating expenses, and to do that in creative ways.
XP: We often are in silos. Affordable housing is very complicated on its own. This is obviously another layer of complexity that I think is difficult for organizations to navigate on their own. It’s really helpful to have Rob and his team explain things to us. I’m still learning a lot about solar and will never be an expert, but with every project I’m getting more familiar with what the different systems are, what we should be looking for and what our experience should be, what questions we should be asking from our contractor who’s selected to install the solar. There’s a lot of lessons learned from this that we will carry on to our other projects.
Do you plan to do more solar in the future?
Pedraza: We do, I think. It certainly aligns with not only our mission, but I think New York policy in general, even in affordable housing. We often have to do a physical assessment of whether solar is feasible on our projects. I think this project could get a step further in terms of the community solar portion, because typically the agencies want the common area usage covered, but not more than that, and so we took advantage of this. These other incentives do something even bigger, which is great, and it’s something I think we’re interested in and doing in other projects. We have another one happening in Rockland County. We got some grant money from the state because it’s an area that’s had power outages from storms and hurricanes. We’re able to use the grant funds to have solar and backup battery on the property, which is great.
Name: Sisters of Charity — Affordable housing project
Location: Staten Island, New York City, New York
System size: 279 kW
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