Blaine County-owned solar projects
The average residence uses about 11,000 kWh (kilowatt hours) per year and people may not know that the more power you use in Idaho, the higher rate you pay. On my current summer bill, the first 800 kWh of electricity per month my house uses costs 8.54¢ per kWh and the next 800 kWh cost 10.27¢ per kWh. (Which is why changing out light bulbs, installing insulation, and sealing up leaky windows really makes a difference in your bill—energy efficiency helps to keep you in the lower rate.)
Most community projects are designed so that homeowners get a savings from cheaper solar power; 2-4¢ solar power replaces kilowatt for kilowatt a homeowner’s residential 8-11¢ power use. The homeowner doesn’t get those actual electrons, as the solar power gets put onto the transmission wires with a mix of other generation sources, but the utility keeps track of the kilowatt-hours the homeowner generated at the community solar plant power and deducts those kilowatt-hours from your monthly home electrical bill.
In Idaho, city and county governments can be owners in power projects. There is a community solar project proposed at the county’s Glendale Road and Bridge site, for, I believe, $1 per year rent to the county. But if Blaine County did this community solar project themselves, either at this site or Ohio Gulch, it could create savings in the county budget and for homeowners.
I added up Blaine County’s 2019 departmental budgets for electricity, and it looks like the annual electrical bill for the county is about $117,000 at current retail rates. It would take a four-acre community solar farm generating just under 800 kilowatts of solar power to provide 100 percent of the county’s electricity consumption. It could also make the project a little bigger and have room in the project for homeowner subscribers to buy power at a saving compared to their current electricity rates. Maybe there can be a slice of the project reserved for low-income homeowners at even lower rates. I believe that it could also pre-sell subscriptions to those homeowners who wanted to help the county finance the project. Imagine if we help cities, who have the sewer plants’ high energy use, as well be a part of these projects; they can find savings for their cities as well.
Let’s do this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_solar_farm
https://www.illinoissfa.com/programs/community-solar/