On a former landfill in Portland, Oregon, workers are installing hundreds of solar panels in a community solar project that will help people living nearby save on their electric bills. The new solar farm was funded by an unusual source: the city’s pioneering tax on billion-dollar corporations, which was enacted in November 2018 and has raised more than $1.7 billion to fund hundreds of climate-related projects.

The first-of-its-kind program, created through a citizen-led ballot measure, charges a 1% tax on the local retail sales of large corporations like Amazon and Walmart. The city hasn’t disclosed which companies have to pay, but it applies to corporations with more than $1 billion in annual retail sales and at least $500,000 in sales within Portland city limits, with some exemptions for necessities like groceries. Around 500 large companies are affected, and the revenue goes both to community grants and larger city projects, with a focus on climate justice.

In the case of the solar farm, around 170 low-income families can sign up to use a portion of the electricity that’s generated. Because the city fund is covering the cost of putting in the solar panels, the project immediately creates steep savings for those customers—as much as 40% less than what people were paying on their utility bills before.

“Without those funds, it wouldn’t exist,” says Jessica Carmona, the renewables program director at the Bonneville Environmental Foundation , a nonprofit working on the project.

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