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The Energy Intelligence Center (EIC) has a strategic partnership with Jordan Energy which is a top solar solutions provider. This article includes some highlights as well as Solar power news in Maine. EIC’s initial founder, Charlie Szoradi, has a long-standing relationship with Jordan Energy’s founder, Bill Jordan. Charlie engaged Bill and his team for the solar system on Charlie’s beach house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Charlie also recently introduced Jordan Energy to one of EIC’s largest clients for major industrial rooftop systems in Pennsylvania and Texas. Click to learn more about Sustainability_Charlie on Instagram. For his Youtube channel click here: Learn from Looking.
In our consulting and system design capacity, we focus on solutions and specifications that are agnostic to specific technology providers. We undertake rigorous due diligence to determine the performance of clean technologies across the dynamic sustainability marketplace. To learn more about solar power and other clean tech partnerships, Contact Energy Intelligence team.
Here is an example of some Solar Power News in Maine:
The potential cost of solar expansion in Maine
PORTLAND, Maine — Nate Curtis stood in the middle of a 12-acre clearing, where he is about to begin construction of a 3.1 megawatt solar farm.
It's one of 17 solar projects he has under development in Maine, most of them “community solar farms” like the one in Bristol, in which subscribers pay for a portion of the electricity it generates.
Curtis said he hopes to have 850 homes and businesses signed up in Bristol.
“We always guarantee 18 to 20 percent savings on the bill, regardless of rate,” Curtis said.
Community solar projects are a category created under a 2019 law passed by the Maine Legislature and signed by the governor to encourage significant growth in renewable energy sources in order to combat climate change.
Community solar projects must be smaller than 5 MW in size, whole other projects can be as large as the available land, financing and electrical system will accommodate.
The law prompted a surge of projects, some of which have been built and are online while others are still being developed.
To encourage that growth, community solar developers are allowed a rate for their electricity that is higher than what larger “grid scale” solar projects can get in the market.
That policy has been generating criticism and is the focus of a bill awaiting action by the Legislature this week.
"The cost is predictably going to cost ratepayers another 20 to 30 percent more than they’re paying now, which is too high," Tony Buxton, a lawyer for industrial clients who use large amounts of electricity, said.
Grid scale projects charge a marketplace rate that is typically around 3.5 to 4 cents per kilowatt hour, but the law passed three years ago ties the price community solar developers get for their power to the price of natural gas, which drives the standard offer price for electricity. Critics have said that higher price is being spread across all ratepayers and is forcing up customer costs.
“If you can get 100 megawatts at 4 cents a kilowatt hour, why in the heck would you buy 5 megawatts at 18 cents a kilowatt hour? And that’s what’s happening,” Sen. Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, an outspoken opponent of the policy in the Legislature said.
