Community Solar Farm

Solar com­mu­ni­ties are groups of solar pan­els kept at one loca­tion. They offer mem­bers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in solar ener­gy with­out the cost, has­sle, and instal­la­tion of solar equip­ment on their home. The return on their invest­ment is shown as a cred­it on their elec­tric bill.

Mem­bers are sub­scrib­ing to the ener­gy pro­duced by the solar farm in rela­tion to the num­ber of kW units to which they sub­scribe.

The over­all pro­gram term is 20 years. The min­i­mum term par­tic­i­pa­tion is 2 years, and requires a 30-day notice of can­cel­la­tion.

A mem­ber must sub­scribe to at least 1 kW unit, but can­not sub­scribe to more than 5 kW units.

While the cost of installing solar pan­els on a home varies great­ly from house to house, YEC has attempt­ed to keep the Com­mu­ni­ty Solar pric­ing in line with the aver­age cost of putting solar pan­els on a home.

YEC will use tax cred­its asso­ci­at­ed with the Com­mu­ni­ty Solar pro­gram which are fig­ured into the pro­gram’s pric­ing.

Yes! If your sub­scrip­tion pro­duces more ener­gy than your home con­sumes in one month, you will see a cred­it on your account, regard­less of the amount.

If the com­mu­ni­ty solar arrays are dam­aged dur­ing a storm, mem­bers will receive a pro­por­tion­ate share of the ener­gy pro­duced by any non-dam­aged pan­els while repairs are made.

Mem­bers sub­scribe to the out­put from YEC’s com­mu­ni­ty solar site for a 20-year peri­od, choos­ing the num­ber of kilo­watt (kW) units for their sub­scrip­tion. One kW unit will pro­duce approx­i­mate­ly 150 kWh per month. You can add more kW units at any time, as long as they are avail­able.

When ener­gy pro­duc­tion begins, you will receive a por­tion of the pro­duc­tion from the solar com­mu­ni­ty each month, based on the num­ber of kW unit sub­scrip­tions on your account.

Mem­bers pay a por­tion of the cost per kW unit upfront, then a month­ly sub­scrip­tion fee is charged as a line item on the elec­tric bill. The cor­re­lat­ing out­put of the sub­scribed kW units is cred­it­ed back to the mem­ber at 10¢ per kWh. Mem­bers pay a one-time $30 admin­is­tra­tive fee for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram.

• Sub­scrip­tions Upfront Charge: $100 per kW
• Month­ly Unit Charge: $12 per kW sub­scrip­tion
• Month­ly Cred­it: 10¢ per kWh
• One-time $30 admin­is­tra­tive fee

Any YEC mem­ber in good stand­ing may par­tic­i­pate in the Com­mu­ni­ty Solar pro­gram on a first come, first served basis. This excludes res­i­den­tial net meter­ing and Advance Pay accounts.

YEC’s com­mu­ni­ty solar array pro­duces approx­i­mate­ly 50 kW per month, which is rough­ly equiv­a­lent to the ener­gy used by 7 aver­age homes in YEC’s ser­vice area. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to note that solar pro­duc­tion will vary from month to month based on weath­er and time of year.

If a Com­mu­ni­ty Solar mem­ber moves from one home served by YEC to anoth­er home served by YEC, the solar ener­gy sub­scrip­tion moves with the mem­ber.

If a mem­ber moves out of YEC’s ser­vice area, the sub­scrip­tion will ter­mi­nate; the upfront charge paid upon begin­ning the pro­gram is not refund­able.

Not at all. The sun’s ener­gy is a great, clean resource which we should uti­lize.

Yes! If your sub­scrip­tion pro­duces more ener­gy than your home con­sumes in one month, you will see a cred­it on your account, regard­less of the amount.

Every year the cost of solar ener­gy sys­tems decreas­es. Even with these decreas­es, the cost jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is heav­i­ly depen­dent upon gov­ern­ment tax cred­its. Present­ly pay­back ranges between 9 and 12 years, but this could change dras­ti­cal­ly if incen­tives were to increase or decrease.

They are Sharp pan­els and were made in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee.

Approx­i­mate­ly 50KWH per day (on good days). On a good day, the solar pan­els will be able to sup­ply the Fort Mill office and also put extra on the grid. YEC is putting all the elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed back on the grid instead of tying it back to the office. The pan­els have the poten­tial to gen­er­ate approx­i­mate­ly half of the office’s use for a year.

The pro­ject­ed cost, which San­tee Coop­er is pro­vid­ing with monies gen­er­at­ed from Green Pow­er, is $35,449.