Solar energy is an environmental – and budget – friendly option to curb energy bills, which is now more feasible for small businesses via grant funding available through Sept. 30.
“It’s a great possible solution for our appetite for energy,” said Gregg Dubit, a solar sales consultant at Shaw Solar, a Durango-based solar company that serves Southwest Colorado.
It’s cost effective, too.
“A lot of farms are experiencing rising utility costs and … we’ve been pretty immune, for the most part, to that rising power cost,” said Sam Perry, a farmer and co-founder of Fenceline Cider in Mancos, a business where Shaw Solar installed panels.
“A lot of that is thanks to the investment we made in solar at the farm and at the cidery.”
The 52.44 kW array on the cidery’s roof generates about 87,000 kWh a year, which is nearly 100% of what they use.
Though they still get a monthly base charge bill, solar helps reduce said bill by about $7,000 a year, based on Empire Electric’s general service rate.
“To date, none of our solar projects have displaced agricultural land. It’s only helped offset operational costs for their operation,” said Dubit.
“We’re doing it in small ways … in little increments to offset the power usage on sites.”
Shaw Solar doesn’t install utility – or industrial – scale solar arrays, which is often where people are at odds with the renewable energy source. They say projects of this scale forever destroy the land by removing trees, degrading the soil and taking over wildlife habitat.
“It’s really a different business model than what ours is,” said Dubit.
Shaw Solar is working with small-scale producers and business owners, connecting them to grants made available by the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program. The grants are available through next month and covers half the cost of solar installation.
“We have grant writers on staff, and I’m proud to say that our team has a 100% batting average in successfully bringing grants to our area,” Dubit said.
So far, Shaw Solar has landed Kokopelli Bike and Board, Southwest Ag Inc., Fenceline Cider, Southwest Seed Inc. and Alpacka Raft grant funding for solar, to name a few.
Plus, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, extended through 2033, there’s a 30% tax credit and bonus depreciation that further reduces installation costs.
These tax credit solar projects are newly available to nonprofits – churches, schools, fire stations and the like – with something called direct pay. Essentially, nonprofits can get money back as a direct payment or rebate from the federal government if they install solar.
“There’s kind of a national, very strong incentive, for people to put solar on their homes and their businesses to offset their energy costs. The proposition is better than it’s ever been for businesses,” said Dubit. “It’s a very, shall we say, bright period for solar.”
Though there will be more opportunities for grant funding after Sept. 30, it might not stay at 50% of project costs.
If our region doesn’t use the money, it will go to other rural areas across America. The money is already out there, Dubit said. People just need to apply for it.
As far as the array at Fenceline Cider goes, Perry said he’s happy to have aligned their values and lessened their carbon footprint via solar. So are the customers.
“As a cider producer, a lot of our customers are gluten free, they’re conscientious about what they eat and where it comes from and tend to focus on organic and sustainably raised products,” said Perry.
“They love knowing that the process of making our cider isn’t creating a big carbon footprint or requiring additional fossil fuel generations.”
Perry said he’s noticed cooler temperatures inside Fenceline Cider, an ancillary benefit he didn’t see coming.
“It’s a huge benefit, not only just for working in there, but for the cider itself because one of the things we have to do to control the yeast and the microbial growth is to control the temperature,” he said.
On what was unproductive, sun-bleached land, Perry has noticed grass growing where it didn’t used to grow, under and around the 10kW array at his ranch.
“If we approach it (solar) intelligently and don’t put solar in prime ag land, it could be a really good thing for our community,” said Perry. “I believe that agriculture and photovoltaics have a very bright future together.”
