The Connecticut Green Bank proudly announces that Westville Seafood in New Haven recently added a solar PV system to its roof using financing through the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) program.
Westville Seafood has been serving customers with a variety of fried and grilled seafood dishes, as well as soups, salads and sandwiches since 2008. The 32.56-kW solar system is projected to produce energy cost savings of more than $240,000 over the 25-year effective useful life of the panels.
“With our peak busy season being in the summer, we use a significant amount of energy to power the restaurant, which results in higher energy costs,” said David Austin, owner of Westville Seafood. “Going solar helped offset the cost of electricity, it’s more environmentally friendly and our customers love it. We’re thankful for the help we received from the Connecticut Green Bank, who made the process easy.”
News item from the Connecticut Green Bank
“The 32.56-kW solar system is projected to produce energy cost savings of more than $240,000 over the 25-year effective useful life of the panels.”
I’m’ skeptical of the $240,000 energy savings over 25 years use of the system. This country has seen solar PV prices drop precipitously over the last 10 years AND during that time, across the U.S. electricity prices are still rising and it doesn’t look like it will roll off anytime soon as RPS mandates push the retirement of fueled generation, rate cases filed to increase electricity rates due to “stranded assets” are going to become more common, even in areas currently enjoying electricity rates under $0.12/kWh. At the current rate, it’s looking like utilities will get a 40% electricity rate increase from 2020 to 2030 and perhaps another 40% rate increase from 2030 to 2040, that last 10% to 15% replacement for fueled generation may by itself cost another 40% to finish the decarbonization job. Looking at this, an electric bill of $200/month in 2020 will cost $280/month for using the same amount of energy. From 2030 to 2040 it will go from $280/month to $392/month for the same energy use and from 2040 to 2050 it would cost $392/month to $549/month for the same energy use. This may be around $270K over those 25 years. IF the ocean doesn’t rise and wash this business away, it may save even more money after 30 years, 40 years of operation.