To our Members/Customers and Community Supporters;
So a lot has happened in the last several weeks here at the Co-op. We were hoping to get his information out to everyone sooner but it’s been so crazy it’s been a struggle to get to a computer to type up the announcement(plus we needed to wait for the final interconnect). We are very pleased to announce that the Solar Array on the Pole Barn in back of the Co-op is completed and generating electricity. After many months of planning, discussions, evaluations and many many emails the project has finally come to fruition. In the last two years we have seen our energy costs nearly double (despite using the same amount of electricity) and we are hoping that in the long term it helps reduce those energy costs as well as help with our sustainability goals along the way.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the individuals/groups who worked through the process and provided help and guidance along with way. Thank you to our volunteer board who sat through many hours of meetings and discussions trying to work on the best solution for the Co-op. Thank you to our ever gracious landlord who allowed us to move forward with the project on their property. Thank you to SolarLogix for working with us throughout the project and for making a massive final push the week of Common Ground Fair. Thank you to CEI Inc for providing the primary financing to move forward with the project. Thank you to the USDA and the REAP program that will help offset a significant portion of the project cost. And last, but certainly not least, we want to give a big shout out to all our members and customers who donated to our solar fund to help ease the burden of unexpected and increased costs that occurred with the project along the way (isn’t that always the way..). Your continued support and donations will help go toward lowering the long term cost of the project as we are still in the process of paying off some of the increases and have taken on long term debt to finance the project.
Now we move into the phase of evaluating the potential impact of the system (this likely will take several months) and once we have a clearer picture we’re hoping that we will realize some cost savings that we can put back into the Co-op to continue to provide for our membership and community! And finally a big thank you to everyone that continues to make the MRC a reality!
P.S. – If you are curious to see what the array is producing there is now a link on the website under the solar donation button so you can take a look.