GOSHEN — Local, state and company officials gathered Monday in Goshen for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Clean Energy Collective’s new 1.1-megawatt solar energy project.
“This project is a great example of empowering our local communities,” said Daniel Knapik, director of Green Communities for the state Department of Energy Resources. “It is projects like this that lead the way in clean, renewable energy in our state.”
Construction on the $2.2 million project began about two months ago, and CEC co-owner Jeffrey Lord said the array will be completed by the end of November. The facility is expected to be up and running by the first quarter of 2017.
The array, at 194 Berkshire Trail East, is situated on 8 or 9 acres of land leased to CEC by Gerald Lashway of Lashway Lumber, and will consist of 4,000 ground-mounted solar panels.
Based in Carbondale, Colorado, CEC has offices in Worcester and Boston and specializes in building medium-scale “roofless solar” facilities that are collectively owned by participating utility customers.
According to Hannah Masterjohn, CEC’s director of policy and new markets, National Grid customers in western Massachusetts may purchase shares in the Goshen Community Solar Array and then receive a credit on their electric bill for a portion of the solar power produced by the facility.
This arrangement allows renters and homeowners whose properties are not suitable for solar panels, due to roof construction, location or shading, to benefit from locally produced, clean solar energy.
Masterjohn said there are 100 to 120 western Massachusetts customers with shares in the company.
Lord noted that the new solar array will displace roughly 30 million kilowatt hours of fossil fuel-generated electricity, which is equal to planting nearly 81,000 trees or avoiding emissions from 60 million miles of automobile travel.
He also said there would be nearly $600,000 in savings on electricity bills for National Grid residential customers over the next 20 years.
“Every dime we save turns into billions of dollars that get put back into the workforce and the economy,” state Rep. Stephen Kulik said.
Kulik, D-Worthington, said Massachusetts leads the nation in adopting renewable solar energy, as well as increasing investments in conservation and efficiency to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“I believe that we must increase state support for community solar projects like this one so that a wide range of people can obtain the benefits of switching to a greener energy future,” Kulik said.
The project will also generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in property tax revenue for the town of Goshen.
“I think that this is an awesome project,” said Goshen Assessor Gina Papineau. “We really did a lot of research to be sure that it was a good deal for the town.”
Lord said that CEC covered all of the cost associated with the upgrades to the current National Grid infrastructure that were necessary for the new facility to connect to the grid, and that there was no cost to the town or to ratepayers.
“We want to get to zero fossil fuel emissions,” state Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield, said. “To get there, we need projects like this and communities that are open and welcoming to them.”