GUC celebrated its first community solar farm with community members, panel subscribers, GUC leadership, and community leaders during a ribbon cutting ceremony on October 7th.
GUC’s Community Solar Farm is the second of its kind in North Carolina. Located next the Liquefied Natural Gas Plant across from Bradford Creek Soccer Complex, the 500-kilowatt solar farm holds 1,120 panels that generate approximately 88,100 kilowatt hours a month, all of which are placed on the GUC electric grid.
While the solar farm went online September 26th, the ribbon cutting was strategically planned for October during Public Power Week, which ran from October 5th – 11th.
“As Chair of your public utility, I can attest to the multitude of benefits that public power has to offer our community,” said GUC Board Chair Mark Garner during the celebration. “Your Board of Commissioners is here to serve you, our customers, and not shareholders living outside of our service area. This means that when our customers provide feedback, we listen, and then we adapt as best we can while providing reliable service at competitive prices.”
Chair Garner also referred to the results of the last two customer satisfaction surveys, along with an increasing growth in customer-owned renewable energy interconnections, both of which inspired the development of GUC’s first community solar project.
In the most recent customer satisfaction survey, 53% of respondents said they wanted to help reduce carbon emissions and would be willing to pay extra each month to do so. Most said they’d be willing to pay between $1 and $5 extra, with some saying they’d pay more than that.
“Providing renewable energy options for only those customers who are willing to pay for it is tricky outside of personal solar installation,” said Electric Planning Engineer Kyle Brown. “After researching and talking to other public utilities, we chose community solar. It allows our electric customers to access solar-produced electricity when they can’t install panels at their home or business due to cost, space, or rental status.”
Construction of the solar farm lasted just under six months despite heavy rain in the spring and heat waves in the summer.
“We are happy to have some of our first panel subscribers with us here today. Thank you all for being early adopters and ambassadors to our community’s newest clean future facility,” Chair Garner remarked during the ceremony.
After the ceremony, Justin and Lana Miller, early panel subscribers, said they were happy at the prospect of subscribing to the solar farm panels. “When traveling in different counties, we see fields and fields of solar panels. When this opportunity [came] to us, we jumped on the train immediately,” said Mrs. Miller.
They said they were quick to call back in and add more panels to their subscription after our Board approved to remove the five-panel per customer limit that was originally in place.
