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Community Solar Is Catching On

It’s Catching On All Across The Country – Community Solar

It first started catching on a few years age in Colorado, It’s an idea that lets community members participate in a solar energy project when they can’t put one on their own property or they find their own projects too expensive. Even renters can become part of one of these communities.

community solar garden

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Here’s what this news journal had to say about community solar.

The gardens feed electricity to the local power grid. Customers subscribe to that power and get credit on their utility bills, with contracts that typically lock in for 25 years and shelter against rate increases. Some developers say customer bills will drop below regular retail rates within a few years; others say the savings begin immediately.

“This is really the year that community solar becomes mainstream,” said David Amster-Olszewski, CEO of Denver-based solar garden developer SunShare LLC, which runs two operations in Colorado and is developing more with Xcel Energy Inc., including in Minnesota.

Rooftop solar panels are becoming more popular among homeowners as the cost comes down, but that market is limited to only about one-fourth of U.S. residences, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy. Community solar opens the door to many more, including renters, customers with shaded roofs and those who can’t afford solar panels.

It’s friendly to big customers, too. Ecolab Inc. is the first major corporate customer to commit to Minnesota’s program. The Fortune 500 sanitation technology company will get enough electricity from a project in the suburbs to provide most of the power for its St. Paul headquarters.

At least 10 states promote ways for multiple customers to share renewable energy systems, according to the advocacy group Vote Solar, and a dozen states are actively promoting community solar.

Discover more about these groups that are building these Solar Gardens here — original article —

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