Catalyze’s Amherst Community Solar Farm Earns Top Project of the Year Award from Environment + Energy Leader

Houston, TX – April 22, 2024 – Catalyze, a clean energy transition company that finances, builds, owns and operates solar and battery storage systems, today announced that its 6.4MW Amherst Community Solar Farm (commissioned May 2023) has been named a Top Project of the Year in the Environmental Impact category by the Environment+Energy (E+E) Leader Awards program. Catalyze has been recognized by the E+E Leader Awards for consecutive years, previously winning a Top Product of the Year award for its integrated origination-to-operations platform, REenergyze®, in 2023.

The Amherst project was constructed to provide renewable electricity to the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, a critical service provider for low-to-moderate-income residential customers. Ampion, a community solar subscription management company, enrolled 1,300 housing units in the program.

The project is helping New York state reach 6 GW of distributed solar by 2025, 70 percent renewable energy by 2030, and 40 percent of clean energy investment benefiting disadvantaged communities. The solar farm also utilizes sheep, shepherded by a landowner of the Amherst community to maintain the vegetation on-site during the grazing season,  providing the landowner with a new source of revenue while helping maintain the solar site itself.

“We are honored to be recognized again by the E+E Leader Awards for the development of the Amherst Community Solar Farm,” said Jared Haines, CEO of Catalyze. “This project, by providing renewable electricity to low-income residents while simultaneously supporting local shepherds, demonstrates how Catalyze is advancing a holistic and equitable energy transition with local communities as a top priority.”

“I love this company. I love this project. Catalyze is truly a leader in community solar and the use of agrivolataics/sheep in this instance makes it stand out,” noted one of the judges. “The project also brought renewable energy/community solar to 1300 households that are considered economically disadvantaged. Feels like a win around to me.”

Catalyze continued to position itself as a leader in the community solar space since its inception in 2019 and has achieved several impressive milestones over the past year. In August 2023, the company launched the Sheep Creek Community Solar Farm in Adelanto, California, the first community solar farm under California’s ECR Program to be contracted by one of the state’s three investor-owned utilities. Catalyze furthered its work in New York later in the year, inaugurating two solar projects in the town of Lancaster, New York.