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The residents of L’Anse may soon be getting some of their power from solar energy.
Village residents met last night for a follow up meeting regarding a Community Solar Garden.
The Upper Peninsula Solar Assistance and Resource Team, also known as UPSTART, presented information to the village residents earlier this year about the possibility of Community Solar.
Since then, the group has been conducting surveys and gauging community support to better understand the feasibility of such a project.
UPSTART Team Member Emily Prehoda said, “Generally we found that people are supportive. So these are results from a survey, from interviews, from focus group discussions from that last meeting. Yes, people are really interested in doing this and they would like to see a project like this.”
The team presented more detailed information about the project at Wednesday’s meeting, including sponsorship packages and the amount of power that would be generated from the solar panels.
Prehoda said, “The 100 kilowatt system, it would really work if L’Anse were able to pull in one or a few anchor customers to buy a majority of the shares or about half of the shares and that would make it more economically feasible for other residents to participate.”
Prehoda says that funding from the project would come from selling participating village residents shares and they would recoup their investment through a credit on their energy bill.
All in attendance seemed in favor of the $150,000 project that could begin construction as early as next summer if approved by the village.
If approved the solar panels would be installed on Lambert Road near Highway 41.
