Fieldston pays for NYC roofs by leasing them for solar — rent paid in a new roof

Fieldston Power, cofounded in 2024 by Adam Zucker, targets New York City's rent-stabilized apartment buildings — 1920s and '30s walk-ups with capped income, rising expenses and failing roofs. Landlords there had considered solar and found the process too complicated and expensive; a leaking roof alone was often more than the building could absorb.

The structure inverts the rooftop lease: Fieldston takes a 25-year lease on the roof plus easements down to the grid, and instead of paying rent, it pays for a replacement roof with a 20-year warranty. The solar array it installs then sells power to the grid as a community solar project, and low-income renters save on their electric bills.

Owners also collect a city tax abatement worth up to $250,000 across the first four years and move toward compliance with Local Law 97, the city's building-emissions ordinance. Fieldston has replicated the model across more than 70 buildings and is scaling up with a $200 million pipeline of new projects roughly ten times its current size.

The deal turns the building's largest maintenance liability into the site of a new asset — the roof hosts what pays for the roof.

It aligns four parties at once: landlord gets a roof and abatement, renters get cheaper power, Fieldston gets a 25-year site, the grid gets distributed generation.

It unlocks solar for a building class every normal financing route skips, because rent regulation caps the income that would pay for it.

Find the party for whom your cost is unaffordable and your asset is valuable — then pay your rent in their currency.

By mid-2026 the model covered more than 70 buildings, and Fieldston was scaling with a $200 million pipeline about ten times larger.