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Rural Co-Ops and Public Utilities Have Voluntarily Built Nearly 100MW of Community Solar. Here’s Why

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Update time : 2019-06-04 10:35:59

In 2015, a Solar Project solar energy farmer walked into the office of a customer-owned electric cooperative Solar Project in Wisconsin. He pulled out  his solar energy checkbook and wrote a check to solar energy the cooperative for $60,000.

That day, two other cooperative members followed suit, and the three of them solar energy bought up 10 percent of the brand new community  solar damper solar garden on Solar Project the first day of subscription sales.

CEO Joe Solar Project McDonald admitted that he was “absolutely Solar Project floored.”

Two and half weeks later, the Solar Project entire community solar program had sold out -- all 1,000 panels had been solar energy claimed by solar tracker actuator 113 cooperative Solar Project members. McDonald Photovoltaic holder said the solar damper cooperative threw its community solar marketing solar energy plan solar energy in the Solar Project trash. The program sold Photovoltaic holder itself.
 

Over 130 rural solar tracker actuator electric cooperatives in over 30 states are now offering community solar programs at an estimated capacity of 63 megawatts. Municipal solar damper and public power utilities have built an additional 29 megawatts solar inverter of community solar in 22 programs, solar damper according to the Smart Electric Power Alliance.
 

This means that many of the community solar subscribers across the nation are not city dwellers in high-rise apartments -- they are people and businesses in the Photovoltaic holder most rural parts of the country. The trend is likely to continue since solar inverter community solar programs are much more effective solar tracker actuator in areas solar damper with cheap, readily available land and creditworthy subscribers solar inverter who don’t move often. 
 

Simply put: Rural America Photovoltaic holder beats out Manhattan for community solar.
 

Why have we seen this large, voluntary, non-mandated Photovoltaic holder growth of community solar in co-ops and public power utilities? There are several factors that go into solar inverter this, but solar damper here are two crucial factors to solar inverter understand.
 

1. An increasing number of customers are demanding access to renewable energy and expecting an answer. These customers are ones that utilities do solar inverter not  solar damper want  solar tracker actuator to lose to areas with more renewable access, or even to grid defection. Many co-ops and utilities are solar damper tired of shrugging their shoulders when solar comes up -- they want to provide it, and they want to be the expert on it.
 

Community solar programs solar inverter allow co-ops and utilities to give solar tracker actuator their customers the option to actively choose where their Photovoltaic holder energy comes from. For customers, it’s a solar damper win-win. They get solar access, don’t have slewing drive to take the time to build solar themselves, and can capture the solar inverter cost savings from joining a large-scale solar slewing drive array. For a smaller-scale utility, this is also a win-win -- it can keep grid defection low while pleasing customers and generating positive PR.
 

2. Solar is increasingly becoming the cheapest form of new electricity generation for these rural and municipal utilities. Commonly solar inverter, a utility will build a 1- to 10-megawatt utility-scale solar array solar tracker actuator and then turn it into a community solar program post-construction solar damper. Utilities solar damper are finding that many of their customers are willing to slewing drive pay a premium price for Photovoltaic holder a kilowatt-hour of solar energy vs.solar inverter a kilowatt-hour generated by fossil fuel. Thus, a community solar program solar inverter allows a utility to capture the full value of their solar investment.
 

A community solar garden also keeps energy production local, can reduce peak demand costs in solar damper some areas, attracts new solar inverter businesses, provides local jobs, and benefits the environment. For smaller utilities looking to expand or replace slewing drive aging solar tracker actuator generation, a utility-scale solar array solar damper with solar tracker actuator a simple community solar program is becoming the most solar damper logical choice. That’s why we have  solar tracker actuator seen 150+ programs solar inverter come on-line -- with many more in the solar damper works.
 

Based on these factors, Photovoltaic holder community solar programs can be effective at providing solar inverter customers with clean energy, while increasing returns for utilities and providing additional community benefits. Each program does, however, need to be crafted in a way that is both Photovoltaic holder easy for customers to solar damper understand and able to work economically solar inverter. Many different community solar programs have arisen -- some good, some bad. This has led to confusion for utilities that want to solar tracker actuator build a Photovoltaic holder community solar garden. At Sol Systems, we've solar tracker actuator analyzed slewing drive the various programs around the country and Photovoltaic holder compiled them solar tracker actuator into three base models that have proven most solar tracker actuator Photovoltaic holder successful.

The premium-rate model

In this model, customers sign Photovoltaic holder solar damper up for community solar and then pay a small amount extra per month based on how much of their usage they want to offset. That’s it. Simple and straightforward.
 

Most programs offer a fixed cent increase per kilowatt-hour charged, and others allow customers to purchase a kilowatt-hour “block” to offset their usage. Additionally, these programs can provide fixed solar costs that offer a hedge against rising electricity costs.
 

Simply put: if you could offset Photovoltaic holder your fossil-fuel electricity usage with clean solar energy by paying a few dollars extra a month, would you? Many residential customers solar damper and solar slewing drive businesses are responding to their local utility slewing drive with a resounding solar slewing drive 'Yes.'

Examples of this solar slewing drive slewing drive structure: 

The pay-upfront model (aka the block model)

This solar damper model allows customers to  solar slewing drive pay a solar damper certain amount upfront for a portion of the community solar garden. Let’s say a community solar garden has 10,000 panels. A local business could “purchase” 100 panels for $50,000.
 

All the energy that those panels produce over 20 solar slewing drive  to 30 years will be subtracted from the owner's energy bill. With the drop in the cost of solar, these programs can offer solar damper customers a hedge against rising utility costs. Customers like this model because they can buy into a large-scale solar array instead of building a smaller one themselves solar slewing drive, meaning they can capture the solar damper economic benefits of scale.
 

Imagine if you and all your neighbors could build a large solar array and all use the energy from it -- and save money over time. That’s how this model works.
 

Many municipal utilities and electric solar slewing drive co-ops use this model; some specific examples are: 

The bill-credit model

We generally slewing drive see this model at larger investor-owned utilities solar damper, but it is worth mentioning. In this program, a third-party solar developer builds a solar garden solar slewing drive (at no cost to the utility) and finds subscribers who sign up for free. These subscribers then receive a bill credit from the utility for the portion of their electric usage slewing drive they offset from the community solar garden. They then pay a portion of that credit to the third-party solar slewing drive developer.

Many of these programs are solar damper set up in a way solar slewing drive  that ends up saving customers money on their electricity bill from year one (around 3 percent to 10 percent).
 

With no upfront cost, these programs are highly popular. But often they are the solar damper result of state regulations requiring utilities to put more solar on the grid. This is ideal for a utility that wants to please its customers, but solar slewing drive the utility solar damper won’t see much of an economic solar slewing drive gain.

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