Randolph Community Solar Phase 2 is Coming!

The first project has been up and running for 2 months and all is well. The solar elicited electrons are flowing especially well, since we have seen little snow this winter. 38 families have gone solar.

Now we are moving on to a second very similar project. It will be on town land near the landfill in Randolph, and the select board has accepted the proposal. The project is already 50% sold.

Our next meeting will be this Sunday, February 28, at 6:30 at the Randolph Town Hall. 

Come join us!

We Are Fully Reserved

The project is full, all shares have been reserved, and we are ready for our Solar Contractor to order the equipment for the solar farm. Thanks to all the members that made this happen.

The meetings in South Strafford and Randolph this week were well attended, almost 40 people total. And many people were ready to reserve shares. By Friday morning we had run out of shares.  We have some folks on a wait list in case a member drops out, but we are off and running. We will have a membership meeting in early October to see the solar farm site and vote on some items.

Already we are looking ahead to another project next year, but we will be focused on this one for a while until the solar electrons get flowing.

Next Meeting: Wednesday Sept.16, 6pm at the Randolph Municipal Building

We will be meeting again to review a few items with the operating agreement, project schedule, budget and the volunteer task list. We will also present the project to new folks and answer questions. The municipal building in Randolph is at 7 Summer St. right behind the post office.

This meeting was advertised in the Randolph Herald with the wrong time: 7:30pm. The meeting is at 6pm. Some of us will hang on until 7:30pm to give information to anyone who comes at that time.

Next Meeting August 13: Meet The Solar Farm Contractor

Our next meeting will be at the Lyon's Den in Randolph at 7:30pm this Thursday August 13.

  • We have selected a local solar installer to take on the solar farm project in Randolph Center, and they will present their plan for the projects.

  • We have also established the Randolph Community Solar LLC, and will have member contracts available so we can formally sign people up. We will review the contracts which were sent to members earlier this week.

  • We can review your most recent GMP bill to determine how many shares you may need.

  • There will be a review of share pricing, the electrical usage audits and also the member labor share price discount. All the nuts and bolts of the project and will be open for questions.

I hope to see you there.

The Solar Farm Installer Proposals Are In

We received 3 proposals Friday from local solar contractors, and they look good. Two of them are below our price targets and all of them satisfy the other RFP requirements. We are reviewing the proposals with the contractors this week and will have an installer selected before our next meeting on August 13. The share pricing recently posted is based on these proposals.

Also, the Randolph Community Solar LLC is officially a going concern in the state of Vermont. We will review the member agreement under which RCS LLC was formed at the next meeting, and folks can start officially signing up for the project.

Next Meeting Wednesday July 29

I have been busy in recent weeks and have much to share with the group at the next meeting:

  1. After meeting with the Vermont Law School Energy Clinic, I have used there model agreement to make an RCS organization agreement and file to incorporate RCS as an LLC with the secretary of state. I have also used the Energy Clinic's model land lease and sent it to the landowner of the new solar farm site.
  2. I have arranged to meet solar installers on new site next week, and expect to have bids for the project by the end of the month.
  3. GMP will review the new site on Monday. Because of the close proximity to 3 phase power we are expecting good news.

Next Meeting:    6:30 Wednesday, July 29

at the Lyon's Den in Randolph

We will review the organization agreement and any bids we have from solar contractors. We hope to have at least a couple attend the meeting. We will also review the report from GMP about the new site.

Also, please bring your most recent GMP electric bills. We will review those and arrange  energy reviews to give ideas on how to reduce your electrical consumption.

Bring a friend! We are still looking for new members to complete the project.

 

Site Selections

After working on confirming our first chosen site on Hebard Hill Road in Randolph, we ran into a few issues, primarily involving new neighbors. In the end we just could not make it work given that one of the new neighbors did not want any ground mount solar in view of his house. This was a blow, and a disappointment to the landowner who hoped to host the solar farm. 

So we have moved our focus to another site in Randolph Center on South Randolph Road. We have the neighbors on board, and we have confirmed the site has very little ledge or rock down to 7 feet. That makes it perfect for the posts needed to hold up the array. It also has a southeasterly downhill slope, which should allow the array to stay mostly hidden from the road. And the sun exposure could not be better. The solar contractors who will be bidding for the project will be visiting the site next week. We expect to have all the bids in by the end of the month, and will choose an installer soon thereafter.

First Meeting was Monday March 30

I received almost as many regrets from people who could not make it as there were people who attended. Maybe Monday is not the best day for meeting?

12 people did show up, including two representatives of our local solar pv installation companies, Catamount Solar and Integrity Energy. They were very helpful when technical or regulatory questions came up.

We all had a good discussion after the presentation on next steps.

  1. Determine the best site for the solar farm. We have 5 potential sites now, and we need to narrow that down to 2. Having a primary site and an alternate will allow us to put out a fairly specific and detailed Request For Proposals to the local solar contractors we are interested in. 
    • I will conduct solar site assessments with my solar pathfinder on the two sites that have not yet had them. I will also make a rough estimate of connection costs to the site from the documents GMP has provided.
    • By Monday the sites will be listed in order of connection cost and solar potential.
  2. Send out an RFP to local solar contractors.  It will include the site information and have a specific scope of work, delineating simpler tasks that may be completed by cooperative labor. The deadline for proposals will be 30 days after the RFP date.
  3. Meet will Vermont Law School Energy Clinic staff (Kevin Jones and Samantha Mashler) to determine how the cooperative should be organized legally. The Energy Clinic has published model agreements and guidelines for direct ownership community solar projects like ours. This will be the first step in creating a legal entity for the group, and specifying exactly how it will operate under Vermont law.
  4. Outreach. Folks at the meeting asked about being kept in the loop for information. I will make sure to include a link to this page in all emails from now on. Also, news of this project needs to spread further. The first challenge will be getting a better turnout at our next meeting in late April.

NEXT MEETING (Date TBD)

One of the topics for the next meeting will be determining how to review the proposals. We will need to put together a small committee to review the RFPs, I may ask a solar professional not bidding on the job to join us to assist in evaluating the proposals. Another key topic will be reviewing the information from the energy clinic, and we will invite a clinic staff member to join us for that.