by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
The City of Sartell just might save up to or more than $428,167 in energy costs during the next 25 years because of a subscription agreement with SolarStone, the developer of a “solar garden” in Sartell.
The city council agreed to approve the subscription agreement at its last meeting.
The Minneapolis-based SolarStone is a company that specializes in development of solar, wind and hydro energy-generating facilities. One such facility is its solar gardens, which are plots of land containing rows of solar panels. Currently, SolarStone has 2,000 acres of solar gardens in Minnesota. Last year, Sartell agreed to lease land to SolarStone for a solar garden to be installed in an area near Heritage Road.
The solar energy generated at solar gardens is delivered to a utility company (in this case Xcel Energy). Xcel Energy customers can then opt to have a portion of their energy delivered based on solar generation via a subscription with the operator of the solar gardens. In return, those customers can get a credit on their bills from Xcel Energy. In the long run, such arrangements are expected to encourage a proliferation of solar and other kinds of renewable, clean-energy production.
In its subscription agreement with SolarStone, the City of Sartell is part of that process. There are no up-front costs to the city, only the subscription for a 25-year period.
Much of Sartell’s electricity needs are delivered by Xcel Energy. The city is allowed to contract via subscription up to 465 killowatt hours of electricity from the solar garden per year. However, the city staff and council decided to subscribe to a lower amount, 260 killowatt hours during the 25-year period. That would amount to about a 16-percent energy savings to the city because of the credits Xcel Energy will give the city for its solar-garden subscription.
There will be other subscribers to the solar garden, as well, once it is up and running. For this particular solar garden, subscribers would have to be customers of Xcel Energy and live in Stearns County or in one of the adjacent counties.
