Power of the sun: Community solar is a resource that Tompkins County has largely embraced

By Jamie Swinnerton
Tompkins Weekly

 

Here in Tompkins County, located in NYSEG’s load zone C, community solar has found a home. And another home. And another. Community solar projects, and solar for private production as well, has been popping up across the county for several years now. Most recently, BlueRock Energy opened a community solar project in Enfield, in partnership with local company Renovus Solar that constructed the panels.

“Just at the end of 2017 we interconnected a 2.3-Megawatt community solar project on Mecklenburg Road in the Town of Enfield,” said Michael Francis, General Manager of BlueRock Solar.

Currently, there are two models for community solar: the subscription style, and the purchase style. The Enfield project, BlueRock’s first in Tompkins County, is a pay-as-you-go subscription model. Their first community solar project was the first pay-as-you-go subscription style in the state of New York and Francis said the first, in Millport, New York, was a success, completely selling out.

“The subscription style, the pay-as-you-go model, is completely different in that BlueRock or its third-party investors will own and operate the project and then the customers sign up and sign contracts for and subscribe to the project,” Francis said. “So, the concept of what we’re doing is that we’re essentially offering customers utility bill credits that will be in excess of what we’re charging them for them… we price our credits at a 10 percent rate discount from what they would be receiving. So, they buy $100 worth of credits, they get those dollar credits on their utility bill, and they pay us $90 for them. So, they have the unique opportunity of going green and then also kind of saving money in the process.”

In order to participate in a community solar project, a customer must be in the same utility load zone (Tompkins County is in NYSEG load zone C). Analise Kukor, an energy educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Community Shared Solar initiative, said one of the reasons Tompkins County has become a popular spot for community solar is down to a few things. First, the mix of urban and rural within Tompkins County provides both customers and spots that community solar projects can build. It’s also down to the attitude of county residents who have been very receptive to solar.

Buying solar for your own home or business requires that the purchaser own the home or business, which has prevented a lot of New York residents from taking in the benefits of solar power. But community solar aims to be, at least in part, a solution to that problem. No need to site the panels on your own house if you can simply tap into their energy production either through a subscription or purchase while the panels reside remotely.

Francis said BlueRock is taking customers now for the community solar project in Enfield. But it’s not just Tompkins County residents who can take advantage of the project.

“I think there’s about 15 different counties that can subscribe,” Francis said. “It’s in what’s called NYSEG’s central zone. So even though this project is located in the Town of Enfield, people in Ithaca, Cortland, Binghamton, Auburn, Elmira, Corning, Horseheads, they can all subscribe.”

But Bluerock, a Syracuse based company, isn’t the only subscription-based community solar project in the county. In the southern end of the county residents of Newfield will soon be neighbors to a community solar project from Nexamp, a Massachusetts based company.

“We’ll be building the project throughout this winter and we expect that the utility, NYSEG, will be connecting it to the larger grid this summer,” said Eric Misbach, Associate Director of Community Solar Operations for Nexamp. “So, once it’s been connected to the NYSEG utility grid that’s when the value of that solar can be credited toward subscriber’s electric bill.”

Like BlueRock, Nexamp’s project is a pay-as-you-go subscription model and are actively signing up subscribers now, before the project goes online.

“A few years ago, New York legislation made it possible for us to share the value of large-scale solar projects with local residents in a very consumer friendly way,” Misbach said. “Our project is operating under the net metering rules where the value of the solar electricity is going to be credited directly to the consumer’s electric bill.”

The project is expected to generate enough energy to serve about 1,000 subscribers. The numbers are hard to pinpoint because energy use will differ by customer. Surrounding counties within the same load zone in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier regions will also be able to tap into the Newfield project.

The Newfield community solar site was originally bought by Delaware River Solar, a company based in New York City, but was then sold to Nexamp. Misbach said the site, around 30 acres, was one of the first that appeared on the company’s radar as suitable for their needs.

“It’s cleared land that is unused for any other purpose,” Misbach said. “And Nexamp, historically, has always chosen land that is not only clear and sunny but it’s often farmland or old farmland that isn’t currently being used for crops and probably wouldn’t be.”

But there are local community solar projects that choose to run not on the subscription model, but on the purchase model. Renovus Solar is a local Tompkins County company situated in the Town of Ulysses. Like BlueRock and Nexamp, after New York state passed net metering laws, Renovus jumped on community solar.

“Once New York State approved that it was kind of relatively straightforward for us to say ‘We have the capacity,’” said Ryan McCune, head of Marketing for Renovus. “We’re one of the larger solar companies in the entire state at this point. We have the capacity and we have the ability to follow-through and develop these farms on a pretty speedy basis and we’ve never really looked back since then.”

Currently, Renovus has several projects within Tompkins County, including a large project practically in their backyard in the Town of Ulysses. Renovus chooses to only use the purchase model because McCune said they want to get their customers more than just 10 percent off of their electricity bill, they want to help them get rid of their electricity bill altogether if possible.

“The reality of the subscription models is that they require no upfront investment which is very attractive to a lot of people. But they also don’t really give you much benefit,” McCune said. “Most of these companies are promising 10 percent off your utility bill, specifically your electric part of your utility bill year one, but the fine print reads that most of them are scaling that back to five or less in year two. The reality is that most of those projects are owned and managed by large financial institutions and they see the power purchase agreements with NYSEG or National Grid or whatever utility they’re working with as an income stream, and that income stream is guaranteed through subscriptions, so they just see it all as a numbers game, which is fine for that model. But it doesn’t work for us.”

That said, McCune said Renovus said the subscription model is great for people who want to feel invested in solar but may not have the upfront capital to invest in solar. Through the purchase model, customers buy and own panels in a community project, and receive a credit on their utility bill for every kilowatt-hour of solar the panels produce. The model often includes a monthly maintenance fee.

But it’s not just individuals who are looking to invest in solar. Large companies, even energy companies, are finding solar to be an investment worth their time and capital. Here in Tompkins County one of the largest private solar farms in the state is expected to be built in Lansing on the existing 434-acre site already occupied by the Cayuga Power Plant and owned and operated by the Cayuga Operating Company.

Announced last May, the project is still out for bid for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction phase, said Minda Conroe, a media liaison for the project, Cayuga Solar. The project put in a couple of renewable energy solicitations to NYSERDA and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) with the state.

“Awaiting some word from the state on those solicitations before anything else moves forward,” Conroe said, “but they’re still working closely with the Town of Lansing on the permitting and doing a couple of other things to keep the project moving forward.”

When the project is finished it is expected to generate 18 megawatts of electricity. The project is just one step in a larger development plan for a “new Cayuga,” according to a Cayuga Solar release from last May. The new Cayuga, the release said, “envisions repowering the existing coal plant with cleaner and cheaper natural gas, and ultimately creating an “energy park” on the 434-acre site.”