New York
11 GW of commercial solar potential. 9.8 GW still untapped.
Across 64,641 commercial rooftops in the NYC Metro area, New York has one of the densest C&I solar markets on the Eastern Seaboard — and at 3.7% adoption, it is still in the earliest phase of its growth.
New York City Metropolitan is a market defined by its contradictions. It has the highest commercial electricity rates in the continental United States, a state-level mandate under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act pushing hard toward distributed generation, and more than 64,000 C&I rooftops concentrated in one of the densest urban-suburban corridors on earth. The economic case for commercial solar here is among the strongest anywhere in the country.
And yet adoption stands at 3.7%. The curve is still exponential — still in the earliest stage — which means the market is not behind some structural ceiling. It has barely started. The question worth asking is not whether this market will move, but how fast the regulatory pressure, cost compression, and neighbor effects combine to pull the middle of the market off its current floor.
The national picture
The NYC Metro adoption curve reads as a classic Stage 1 market: exponential shape, large rooftops leading, small rooftops largely untouched. Buildings above 100,000 sq ft are at 20.9% adoption — already past early-mover territory for this market. The curve drops sharply from there: 14% at the 50,000–100,000 sq ft band, 8% in the mid-range, and below 2% for anything under 5,000 sq ft. The big rooftops went first, as they always do. The smallest are essentially dormant.
What makes the shape interesting is how much runway remains even at the top. At 20.9%, the largest segment has not yet crossed the 25–30% threshold where exponential growth typically converts to linear broadening. This market is still in the phase where the large rooftops are accelerating, not consolidating. The middle segments — 12,500 to 50,000 sq ft — carry the most absolute rooftop count and sit between 6% and 8% adoption: early enough that the takeoff signal is visible but not yet dominant.
The constraint is not economics and not sun. New York's irradiance is moderate but workable, and electricity prices make the numbers clear at virtually every roof size. The constraint has been regulatory complexity, interconnection timelines, and a permitting environment that penalizes smaller projects disproportionately. Those barriers are eroding. The CLCPA trajectory and utility-led solar programs are shortening the path to grid connection. When that friction drops, the adoption curve will steepen fast.
Regional breakdown
Long Island Power Authority
↑ topLIPA covers the largest rooftop base in the metro — 30,168 buildings across Nassau, Suffolk, and adjacent counties — and carries the largest share of untapped capacity at 4.6 GW. At 3.8% adoption it sits near the metro average, but the top segment reaches 22.8%, suggesting the large-roof cohort is active and visible. The mid-range — 12,500 to 50,000 sq ft — sits between 6% and 7%, lagging ConEd at comparable sizes, which reflects Long Island's more dispersed commercial stock relative to the density of the urban core. The neighbor effect here is building but has not yet reached the density threshold where it pulls the mid-range decisively upward. The absolute size of the opportunity is the story: more than half the metro's untapped capacity sits in LIPA territory.
Consolidated Edison
↑ topConEd's service area — the five boroughs plus Westchester — is the most electrically expensive territory in the country, and the adoption curve reflects it. At the top segment, ConEd reaches 21.8%, roughly in line with LIPA; but the mid-range adoption is measurably stronger: 11.6% at the 25,000–50,000 sq ft band and 19.7% at 50,000–100,000 sq ft. The urban building stock — denser, with flat commercial rooftops common in retail, warehouse, and institutional use — concentrates opportunity in a smaller geography. 3.5 GW untapped in a territory this compact is a high-density prospecting environment. The interconnection queue and ConEd's own solar programs are the primary near-term variables.
Orange and Rockland Utilities
↑ topORU covers Orange, Rockland, and Putnam counties — a lower-density mix of suburban and semi-rural commercial stock northwest of the city. At 1.8% adoption across 5,509 rooftops, it sits well below the metro average at every segment. The top segment reaches only 9.6%, compared to 20–23% for ConEd and LIPA, signaling that the large-roof cohort here has not yet activated at scale. This is not a dense enough footprint for the neighbor effect to be the driver; the story here is a market that will follow the metro's momentum rather than lead it. 1.0 GW untapped, modest in metro terms, but real runway for operators already working the other territories.
Central Hudson Gas and Electric
↑ topCentral Hudson covers Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan, and Greene counties — the outer Hudson Valley fringe of the NYC Metro scan. It has 1,546 rooftops and 346 MW untapped. The curve shows a notable step: adoption stays flat at 1% across the two smallest segments before jumping to 18–20% at the top two. That pattern — dormant floor, active ceiling, nothing in between — is typical of a market where the big operators have moved and everyone else is still waiting. The mid-range broadening here hasn't started.
NYS Electric and Gas
↑ topNYSEG's portion of the scan — covering parts of Westchester and Putnam at the northern edge of the metro footprint — contributes 1,316 rooftops and 195 MW untapped. Its top-segment adoption at 29.2% is the highest of any utility territory in the dataset, with the curve strongly exponential from 0.3% at the smallest band. A small footprint at the metro perimeter; the signal matters more than the volume. 29% on the largest rooftops in a NYSEG sub-territory suggests that where the building stock and load profile align, the economics are compelling enough to pull adoption well ahead of the metro average.
Municipal Utilities
↑ topThe three remaining municipal utility territories — Freeport, Rockville Centre, and Greenport — collectively cover 1,078 rooftops and approximately 112 MW of potential. Adoption is effectively zero across all three at 0.3%, with the exception of one isolated large-roof installation in Greenport. These territories are too small to drive momentum independently; their adoption will follow what happens in adjacent LIPA territory.
Where the next large opportunity is
The metro total is 9.8 GW untapped. The more useful question is where that capacity sits relative to how far each territory has moved — and whether the low adoption reflects a market not yet started or one with structural friction.
Two territories carry the weight. LIPA accounts for 4.6 GW untapped — 47% of the metro total — at 3.8% adoption across a large, distributed suburban rooftop base. ConEd accounts for 3.5 GW in a far more compact geography, with the added advantage of the country's highest commercial electricity rates doing the financial underwriting. Together they represent more than 80% of the metro opportunity, and both are still in the exponential phase of their adoption curve.
The contrast is Orange and Rockland. At 1.8% adoption and 1.0 GW untapped, it looks like an early-stage window. But ORU's commercial density — and the ceiling evident in its top-segment numbers — suggests it will follow the metro's trajectory rather than set it. Operators should treat it as a secondary territory: real opportunity, but dependent on the activation pattern in LIPA and ConEd first. Central Hudson and NYSEG contribute a combined 541 MW at the outer edge of the metro scan; worth noting for operators who prospect across the full Hudson Valley corridor, not the primary prize.
The pattern that distinguishes this market from a typical early-stage European C&I market is the absence of a simple density–irradiance dynamic. Every territory in the NYC Metro has high commercial density. The differentiator is regulatory and interconnection friction — which is not uniform across utility territories. ConEd's interconnection queue and LIPA's NEM tariff structures create different timelines for the same underlying economics. Operators who understand the utility-level regulatory environment — not just the rooftop count — are the ones who will build pipeline faster here.
What's driving adoption
The fundamental driver is electricity price. ConEd's commercial rates are the highest in the continental United States, routinely above $0.20/kWh for C&I customers, and LIPA rates are not far behind. At those prices, the payback math on a commercial rooftop system compresses to a range where even moderately-sized buildings have clear economics. The question has never been whether the numbers work — it's been whether the path to installation is navigable.
That path is getting shorter. New York's CLCPA mandates 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% by 2040, and the downstream regulatory architecture — NY-Sun incentives, the Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) tariff, and the Community Distributed Generation framework — gives C&I operators multiple routes to monetize rooftop generation beyond simple self-consumption. Behind-the-meter solar with storage is also an increasingly viable route for operators with demand charges, which are the primary driver of commercial electricity costs for mid-to-large buildings.
The structural headwind has been interconnection. ConEd and LIPA have historically had long queues and inconsistent timelines for small-to-mid commercial projects. That is the constraint the market is working through. As NY-Sun funding cycles continue and utility processes improve under CLCPA pressure, the permitting and interconnection barrier is the single variable most likely to accelerate adoption across the metro.
Key takeaways
- NYC Metro has 64,641 C&I rooftops and 11 GW of solar potential; at 3.7% adoption, 9.8 GW remains untapped and the market is still in Stage 1.
- LIPA and ConEd together account for more than 80% of metro untapped capacity — 4.6 GW and 3.5 GW respectively — and both are still in the exponential phase of their adoption curves.
- Top-segment adoption ranges from 21% (LIPA, ConEd) to 29% (NYSEG) — the large-roof cohort is active but has not yet crossed the broadening threshold in any territory.
- The economic case is among the strongest in the country: commercial electricity rates above $0.20/kWh make rooftop solar a clear financial decision at virtually every commercial building size.
- Interconnection timelines and permitting complexity remain the primary constraint; as CLCPA-driven regulatory improvements reduce that friction, the metro curve will steepen across the mid-range.
Methodology
This breakdown comes from Planno’s national scan of commercial and industrial rooftops, fused with ownership, energy, and contact intelligence per building. The data was compiled in Q2 2025. See how the platform works →
Frequently asked questions
How does Planno identify commercial rooftops?
Planno's geospatial AI scans high-resolution satellite imagery across the entire country and identifies every commercial and industrial rooftop above a minimum size threshold. The model is trained on real C&I assets and validated by solar developers.
How current is this data?
The most recent national scan was compiled in Q2 2025. Figures are refreshed as new scans are run.
Where is the next large untapped opportunity in New York?
LIPA holds the largest absolute untapped capacity in the metro at 4.6 GW — 47% of the total — across a distributed suburban and light-industrial rooftop base still at 3.8% adoption. ConEd is the highest-density opportunity: 3.5 GW untapped in a compact urban territory with the country's highest commercial electricity rates, where the mid-range adoption curve is already measurably stronger than LIPA. Together, these two territories account for over 80% of the metro's near-term pipeline. Orange and Rockland's 1.0 GW is real but will follow the larger territories rather than lead.
What's driving commercial solar adoption in New York right now?
New York's commercial electricity rates — among the highest in the country — make the financial case for rooftop solar clear at virtually every building size. The CLCPA mandate (70% renewable by 2030) is driving a sustained regulatory push through NY-Sun incentives, the VDER tariff, and expanding CDG frameworks. Behind-the-meter solar with storage is increasingly viable for operators with high demand charges. The primary constraint has been interconnection queue times at ConEd and LIPA; those are shortening under regulatory pressure.
