By Dan Colton Staff Writer | June 26,2015
SALISBURY — Salisbury’s second solar field is set for construction later this summer after a Certificate of Public Good was awarded earlier this year.The 1-acre, 150 kilowatt SunCommon community solar field will soon be at the intersection of Route 7 and Plains Road and able to power 30 homes, said Martha Sullivan, Salisbury’s Select Board and Planning Commission chairwoman.She believes most residents support the construction, but said the town’s current solar field has caused some to worry that future developments will detract from Vermont’s scenery.“There was a meeting last week to explain what the community solar array program is, and interest people in joining,” Sullivan said. “Not many people are opposed to solar power,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan said she understood the reservations of Salisbury residents.
“Solar (power) per se is not an issue; it is the arrays that are an issue,” she said. “It’s kind of startling to be driving down the road and to see that. I understand they’re doing screening — I certainly hope they plan to.”
Rebecca Holmes, publisher of the Salisbury quarterly newspaper The Spotted Salamander and member of the community solar field, said the meeting last week saw a large turnout.
“There were 20 to 25 people there, which is pretty big for a small town like Salisbury,” Holmes said of the meeting.
Holmes agreed with Sullivan, saying the biggest concern residents had pertained to landscape impacts. Holmes said that in general, the town had a “mixed reaction.”
Emily McManamy, media contact for SunCommon, said the company’s community solar fields responded to a market demand for alternatives to home-based solar rigs. That demand led SunCommon to start its community solar projects last autumn.
McManamy said once customers join the energy program, the cost of energy “either mirrors or is very comparable based on what they were previously paying for their electricity.”
RJ Adler, the SunCommon community organizer behind the upcoming Salisbury solar field, said SunCommon builds the solar array infrastructure, generating energy credits worth $1 each. The company then sells the $1 credits to customers for 93 cents, resulting in a seven percent discount on energy fees, he said.
Adler said the company makes money when customers buy back the energy credits.
“We get paid when we deliver,” he said.
Kristin Carlson, Green Mountain Power director of media, said that if Salisbury SunCommon community solar members decide to move, they can transfer their solar credits to anywhere in the GMP grid.
SunCommon doesn’t pay to funnel energy into GMP’s electricity grid, Carlson said — in fact, Carlson said GMP can purchase excess renewable energy credits from the Salisbury array, and other community arrays like it.
Since last fall, SunCommon has opened up nine community arrays located in Ferrisburgh, Jericho, New Haven, Whiting, Orwell, Monkton, Fairfield, and two in Waltham. The nine sites serve over 300 customers.
“Our goal is to create accessible, affordable solar for all Vermonters,” McManamy said of SunCommon.
To continue reading the Rutland Herald’s Salisbury slated to receive SunCommon community solar, please visit the story here.
