· Solar City paid for all design and construction costs associated with the 1 MW (megawatt) solar field. Wicomico County provided the land (approximately 5 acres).
· The contract price for the energy generated is $0.045 per kWh and will be held steady for the 20 year contract period.
· There is a cost to terminate the agreement early. At the end of year 20 there is an option to purchase the panels at fair market value.
· The solar field was turned on in February of 2016.
· Our estimated savings to-date seem to be in the $50k range, however more research needs to be done in terms of the interconnectedness of Solar City, Delmarva Power, and Constellation Energy.
Ugly eyesore.
ReplyDeleteJust doing the math, we paid too much! The rest of the deal terms may equalize it with a marginal profit for SolCty - but my review of their business model in the residential area, they're making money hand over fist - and keeping the gov't credits annually!
ReplyDeleteJoe, have you heard anything about the "Airport Farm" on Rt 50 outside Hebron. This was recently purchased by the sod farm of which one of our County Councilman is one of the owners....Matt Holloway. The word on the street is that this 400 acre tract of land is about 75% through the approval process to become a 300 acre solar farm. Wonder if the townspeople of Hebron will like this as much, or little, as the housing project attempted a few years ago. This farm should be protected....not abused. Having 300 acres of solar panels is NOT what I would consider "a beautiful farm". I guess having a councilman as an owner makes for an inside track. This is awful, terrible. The Holloway family should be mightily ashamed.
ReplyDeleteSame old story. They brag about saving but never mention what the costs are.
ReplyDeleteWait a second. I negotiated my kwh with NRG via Delmarva Power and 'bought it down' to 7.5 cents. So, Solar City only pays the generator 4.5 cents. Seems like they would want to encourage solar by paying at least par or better. I guess the difference is Solar City's fee for the lease?
ReplyDeleteAny solar city reps out there that can chime in on this?
Another small plot was erected outside of Easton at the Talbot County Park/Rec Center (ice rink) East side of Route 50.
ReplyDeleteSolar Farm on the Hebron land is better than another stinking CAFO. Better leave well enough alone.
ReplyDelete4:35PM, that's what happens to snowflakes, rather accept one bad situation than another bad situation, instead of working to make it right.
ReplyDeleteWant to see what all looks like?
ReplyDeleteJust take a trip to rt50 and 404
Head east on 404 about a mile then look to your left.
This is what I call is land rape of a farm.
Looks really really awful!
What a joke
Here is how it works - and it is very similar to the sub-prime lender's debacle. Solar City uses the case flow projections from the completed solar field - to backstop and to leverage more solar panel fields. I suppose you could refer to the completed solar field as equity. But by and large - Solar City has a tremendous debt load as the business model allows leverage after leverage based on income projections. So much so that Tesla had to absorb them or the battleship would have more than likely sunk. And it still can - if anything goes awry that requires a large capital outlay. The business model is marginal - at best. But what has been critiqued on more than one occasion is that the Directors on the lending side of the equation also serve duel as Directors as the Developers.
ReplyDelete