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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)