Carl Brahe
New legislation in Colorado will allow as few as 10 individuals, or other entities, to join together to form a solar garden. Homeowners, renters and businesses can jointly own an array of solar panels connected to the grid to supply their own electricity and a little more. IREA customers are not eligible.
Later this year groups of ten or more can form solar gardens to generate up to 120% of their own yearly electricity use. The solar garden owners can be a individuals, businesses or organizations. The PUC is supposed to come up with regulations by Oct 1, 2010 to determine how much ownership will be allowed. The law says generating capacity equal to 120% of your annual electric usage is all you can own. They must presumably also enact rules that will adjust your allowed ownership percentage if you use more or less electricity over a years time. It seems that you might be penalized for energy conservation.
Individual owners will be eligible for any rebates or tax credits that apply to installing new solar panels. The credits and rebates can amount to half the systems cost or more. Owners will be paid for their interest in electricity produced in one of two ways:
Each owner must own at least 1 kilowatt of generation capacity. Ownership can be sold or transferred when a property is sold. Ownership can continue if an owner moves to a new location in the same county. These rules are being developed by the PUC.
Solar gardens can be remote from the owners property as long as they are in the same county. In counties with less than 20,000 people the garden can be in another county. The garden itself can move to a new physical location if that becomes desirable.
Electric utilities will be required to buy up to a total of 6 megawatts of power from solar gardens per year for the first three. Three megawatts must be bought from solar gardens that are smaller than 500 kilowatts for the first 2 years. The largest gardens allowed are 2 megawatts.
Solar gardens can be owned by individuals, and/or for profit or nonprofit business entities. Solar gardens can be leased or owned by a company that operates and maintains the garden. Other third party ownership agreements are allowed.
Solar gardens are not subject to the regulations governing power generating utilities. They are not governed by the PUC. The PUC will not set limits on fees that can be charged by solar garden associations. They will set limits on fees that power companies can charge for administration costs related to paying for power generated by the garden.
Power companies must form plans to encourage ownership in solar gardens including by low income people. They must also find ways to encourage successful financing and operation of solar gardens with the goal of reducing electric cost to owners.
It’s rare that we have the opportunity to escape utility bills and actually have the electric company pay us. For most of us this is an appealing turn of the table. There will be many individuals and businesses offering plans for ownership. Some will be good and others will not. Some will specifically prey on low income people. If you choose to participate choose the plan you use carefully, or take control and form your own association and build your own garden.You can be your own power company.
- The electric utility will directly credit their monthly bills with each individual share of power produced.
- The organization that owns the solar garden will present a monthly bill for electricity produced and individual owners will be paid according to their percentage of ownership.
- Each owner must own at least 1 kilowatt of generation capacity. Ownership can be sold or transferred when a property is sold. Ownership can continue if an owner moves to a new location in the same county. These rules are being developed by the PUC.
Solar gardens can be remote from the owners property as long as they are in the same county. In counties with less than 20,000 people the garden can be in another county. The garden itself can move to a new physical location if that becomes desirable.
Electric utilities will be required to buy up to a total of 6 megawatts of power from solar gardens per year for the first three. Three megawatts must be bought from solar gardens that are smaller than 500 kilowatts for the first 2 years. The largest gardens allowed are 2 megawatts.
Solar gardens can be owned by individuals, and/or for profit or nonprofit business entities. Solar gardens can be leased or owned by a company that operates and maintains the garden. Other third party ownership agreements are allowed.
Solar gardens are not subject to the regulations governing power generating utilities. They are not governed by the PUC. The PUC will not set limits on fees that can be charged by solar garden associations. They will set limits on fees that power companies can charge for administration costs related to paying for power generated by the garden.
Power companies must form plans to encourage ownership in solar gardens including by low income people. They must also find ways to encourage successful financing and operation of solar gardens with the goal of reducing electric cost to owners.
Solar Gardens spreading nationwide from Colorado Solar gardens got their start in Colorado and are gaining popularity across the country. Individual ownership of power producing facilities is growing. Solar garden projects tend to waiting lists of investors due to the lure of producing your own power without having solar panels on your roof. The demand for the investment makes reselling rights easy.
One issue that is still being resolved is the price paid for electricity produced and put into the grid. Individual solar panel owners and solar garden companies believe they should not pay for the power they produce. They should be able to withdraw the power they put into the grid without charge. Power companies don't want to pay as much to small producers and believe they should charge a fee for energy put into the grid. For the individual solar panel owner producing a surplus of electricity paying a grid us fee is like charging a gasoline truck delivery driver to pay a fee for accessing the individual gas station storage tanks to deliver fresh gas. Charging people you buy from a fee for the privilege of selling to them probably won't work at the grocery store. Charging a use fee for a solar garden that does actually use the grid to deliver its power is reasonable.
One solar garden company is working with a charter school in an economically depressed area to offer free electricity to the student's families.
Solar gardens nourished by Xcel incentives set to bloom in
COLORADO POSTED: 07/15/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT
BY MARK JAFFE
THE DENVER POST
Solar gardens are poised to sprout across Colorado — from Fort Collins to Leadville to the Paradox Valley near Utah — and some are already taking root. Looking to take advantage of a new incentive program from Xcel Energy, the state's largest electric-utility company, community groups and developers are crafting garden proposals.
Solar gardens enable people who don't have a sunny roof or the money to buy a full array to buy or lease a piece of an array — in some cases for as little as $1,000."This is a way to make solar available to all our customers," said Robin Kittel, Xcel's director of regulatory administration. "We are also looking for creative low-income projects."