Environmental advocates broke ground Friday morning on the first community solar garden in Arkansas, which will serve at least two households right away and more later.
Stellar Sun CEO William "Bill" Ball said the 1-acre garden is the first of many larger gardens that will crop up across the state in the coming years. Other efforts to build community solar gardens to supply individuals and businesses with cheaper solar power are underway, although Ball said nothing else is official.
Stellar Sun is a solar-energy equipment supplier at 126 Bearskin Lake Loop in Scott, where a couple of dozen people stood Friday morning beneath a bright sun, shielding their eyes.
The acre of solar panels will be outside the Stellar Sun building, which already is adorned with solar panels.
The land can accommodate 410 panels, 120 of which have been secured by two sets of homeowners to supply power to their houses. A solar panel generates about 265 watts of electricity, Ball said.
One of those homeowners is Barry Haas, who has bought 40 panels with his wife, Susan. He said he'll save 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity used with the solar panels. He said he pays 11 cents per kilowatt hour now to a utility for nonrenewable energy.
"We're really excited about this project," Haas told the crowd Friday.
The Haases didn't install any solar panels on their home just west of Little Rock because the forested surroundings would make the panels inefficient. They would have had to cut down trees, Barry Haas said.
So they'll build and own 40 panels on Bearskin Lake Loop that will be metered and read by Entergy, then billed to the Haases based on how much they use. They'll also get a 30 percent federal tax credit for using renewable energy.
Homeowner Don Deems has secured 80 panels, which will be constructed to power his home. He said he has seen changes in the environment because of pollution and wants to leave a smaller environmental impact on the world.
The tax credit didn't play much of a role in his decision to power his home with solar panels.
"If I didn't have it, I'd still do it," he told the crowd.
While the solar panels can end up saving money in the long term, the biggest cost comes upfront.
Ball said a watt of solar electricity might cost $3.25 to $3.65. For 40 panels of 265 watts, a person must pay at least $34,450.
But the cost keeps going down, Ball said. Technology is advancing, policy is growing more favorable for renewables and the price of renewable energy will continue to drop, he said.
Glen Hooks, director of the Sierra Club in Arkansas, told the crowd that he believed "clean-energy revolution" arrived in Arkansas this year, citing the solar garden, other proposed projects and Entergy Arkansas' proposal to close its White Bluff coal plant near Redfield in favor of natural gas and/or renewable energy. He called the moves "beyond exciting."
Metro on 11/21/2015