On July 19 of last summer the Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) completed its first-ever local renewable energy project, installing 144 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the rooftop of the city’s new public works building located near the site of the old Tomteboda Motel.
The solar installation is rated at 51 kilowatts (kW) and is second in size within Cook County only to the Arrowhead Electric Cooperative’s 60 kW solar system.
Energy Concepts of Hudson, Wisconsin installed the panels at a project cost of $146,500. That works out to an estimated simple payback of about 30 years under a contract with Grand Marais’s power provider, Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA). “Not a great investment, but not a terrible one either,” said PUC Commissioner George Wilkes.
“There is some payback, which is good, and it reduces ever-so-slightly our carbon emissions, which is also good. But the real benefit of this project is that by investing in solar panels now we are contributing to the economies of scale that are driving down prices and positioning solar power as an increasingly cost-effective solution to climate change. The sooner that happens the better, ” said Wilkes.
Another source of local solar power comes from three solar PV installations owned by PUC customers: a 22 kW system on the roof of the Cook County Whole Foods Co-op; a 6 kW system at the Art House B&B; and one residential system rated at about 5 kW. An additional two customer owned systems are in the works.
Because of a combination of state and federal incentives and regulations, these customer-owned solar systems are now providing a simple payback for their owners of about 10-15 years.
Commissioner Wilkes said, “The difference in payback times is mostly a function of governmental incentives, but you have to remember that it’s taxpayers and ratepayers who ultimately pay for those incentives. So, in the big picture, both kinds of solar development — utility owned and customer owned — deliver the same climate benefits at about the same overall cost.”
The Grand Marais PUC also receives a small amount of non-local solar power through its share of SMMPA’s 5-megawatt solar PV system installed in 2017 near Owatonna, Minnesota (5 megawatts is 5,000 kW or 20,500 panels). That solar power is shared among SMMPA’s 18 member communities and amounts to about .3 percent of SMMPA’s total electricity needs.
Utility scale wind power, which is currently quite a bit cheaper than solar power, will make up about 25 percent of SMMPA’s electricity needs by 2020. The Grand Marais PUC has been working with SMMPA to install more carbon-free power generation and to take further actions to address the rapidly unfolding crisis of climate change.
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