Nautilus Solar Energy, an owner-operator of solar projects throughout the United States, marked the opening of a 7-MW community solar farm in North Berwick, Maine. Constructed on a former sand pit, this project represents the transformation of compromised land into a productive source of clean energy, local jobs and economic growth for the local community.
Credit: Nautilus Solar Energy
Thirty-five percent of the development of the community solar farm was provided by local skilled workers in the construction, engineering and electrical fields. An additional 20 to 25 full-time positions were created for ongoing electrical and site vegetation management crews.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the opening of this unique community solar farm in North Berwick,” said Eric LaMora, executive director of community solar at Nautilus. “By repurposing a former sand quarry, we have achieved much more than clean energy generation. This project serves as a shining example of the potential to unlock local job opportunities and stimulate economic growth. We are proud to contribute to a sustainable and prosperous future for the entire community.”
Endurance Clean Energy developed this community solar project. In 2021, Nautilus acquired the quarry community solar farm, along with three other projects totaling 25.4 MWDC, from Endurance. Nautilus is the long-term owner and operator of the community solar farm, responsible for project management, asset management, maintenance services and subscriber acquisition.
“Our team worked diligently with the quarry owner-operator, town and state to properly manage the land use transition from sand to solar. We are excited to see those efforts realized today,” said Michael Lucini, president of Endurance Clean Energy. “Previously, this site contributed to building Maine for many years. Now, it will contribute to sustainably powering Maine for many more years.”
The newly inaugurated community solar farm provides clean energy to 66 commercial off-takers within the Central Maine Power utility territory and has an annual production of 10 million kWh.
Qualified under the Maine Net Energy Billing Commercial program, the community solar project gives subscribers the opportunity to reduce their monthly utility bills as well as their carbon footprint. It enables residents and businesses throughout Maine, who previously faced obstacles accessing or affording solar energy, to participate in the community solar program. Through this initiative, residents can save 15% on their monthly utility bill without the need for complex and expensive rooftop installations.
News item from Nautilus Solar Energy
“Through this initiative, residents can save 15% on their monthly utility bill without the need for complex and expensive rooftop installations.”
A little bit contrary when on this very site, there are pop ups showing the latest/greatest new ‘self sealing’ simple install solar PV panel mount systems available today. Yes, one can construct a “utiity scale” solar PV farm for less than $1/watt at economies of scale. When one is paying in the bundled “retail” electricity market, the simple grid tied system with ITC of 30% still has a greater cost savings over the life of the system, even those that are around $3/watt to $3.50/watt installed. Installing solar PV on one’s roof and using the energy where it is generated is more efficient than any centralized generation with dispatch over transmission power corridors. Folks are still commingling the concept of the economies of scale of the utility scale solar PV farm in the wholesale electricity market, with the bundled retail electricity market and some actually mention entities like Lazard LCOE in the utility sector of ‘costs’ and the often many bundled costs making up the retail electricity market residences acrossed the U.S. are paying for now. Wholesale electricity can actually drop to say $0.02/kWh, $20/MWh at the wholesale scale, but the retail rates can be from $0.16/kWh up to some specific TOU rate periods of around $0.53/kWh.
Here’s the deal, in 2016 NREL did a LIDAR flyover study of the U.S. and there is something like 67 million ‘viable’ solar PV roofs in the U.S.. (IF) one installs 8.5kWp about 460 to 528 square feet of roof space on these 67 million roofs, then using a conservative 4 sun hours a day solar harvest one would on average generate about 2.28TWh a (day). Install 20kWh ESS systems on these 67 million solar PV installations to create an aggregate solar PV plus storage of roughly 1.34TWh of nationwide energy storage each day. Why does it have to be so hard?