Update from Kurt

Fall 2018 Project Update – Continued!

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Kurt Reinhold, 11/15/18

Last month, we updated you on five projects that were on the horizon. As the year comes to a close, we would like to introduce a few more and update you on some we’ve already introduced.

VFW Post 8483 in Madison - First Day of Construction

First day of construction – Roof of VFW Post 8483 in Madison

VFW #8483 Truax-Longmire (Madison).  During the week of 11/5/18, Member Midwest Solar Power of Madison added panels to the VFW roof in the beginning of the month! 40 kilowatts of solar thanks to bondholders, RECIP and Solar 4 Good grants.

Oregon Ice Arena.  LSC Member Full Spectrum Solar will be installing 190 kilowatts on the pitched roof facing due south just east of Highway 14 and just south of the High School in the city of Oregon.  On Ice Promotions worked with the non-profit’s board and got this big project the green light after first being introduced to the ice arena 2 years ago.  The project will generate about 20% of the ice arena’s electricity use and its 560 flush mounted solar panels help keep the inside of the ice arena’s roof nice and cool during the hot summer months making the solar power even more attractive.

Christ Lutheran Church in Spring Green is about to get 54 solar panels installed by Member WES Engineering on the roof covering their fellowship hall.  This project should generate roughly 60% of the church’s electricity and set a great example of environmental stewardship for the community and for other congregations.  A Solar for Good grant was used to help bring the cost down for the Church.

The Literacy Network of Dane County in Madison will also get 20 kilowatts of solar on its roof just off of South Park street. Thanks in part to a Solar for Good grant and a Legacy Solar Co-op loan, this end-of-the-year project we hope can be installed and commissioned before Christmas. Thanks to the hard work by Member WES Engineering.

Thank you all for your membership, your readership, and your investments in your Co-op this year.  Drop us a line some time — or, better yet, come by the Goodman Center for our Annual Membership Meeting.  If you are not yet a member, we can help you with that situation.

Sunny Regards,

Kurt Reinhold
Legacy Solar Co-op

Update from Kurt

Fall 2018 Project Updates

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Kurt Reinhold, 10/23/18

The fall season is bringing with it lots of excitement for LSC and our members for project development.  We have the following projects either being built right now or in the process of signing contracts to be built in the coming months.  Most of these are fully capitalized, but we will let you know when we need an infusion of bond assistance from our members to close the year’s project loans.

  1. City of Beaver Dam.  Member North Wind Renewable Cooperative of Stevens Point just started working on City Hall this week and will start next month on the Watermark Center, and together with LED retrofits for the former, will complete over 200 kilowatts of solar and save over 279,000 kilowatt hours a year!
  2. VFW #8483 Truax-Longmire (Madison).  Member Midwest Solar Power of Madison is also starting this week to install 40 kilowatts of solar atop this VFW post and should be completed by mid-November.  Our Co-op helped finance $25,000 worth of this project — thank you to our bondholders — plus helped the VFW apply for (& receive!) RECIP and Solar 4 Good grants.
  3. Sawyer County Housing Authority (Hayward).  Member Carlson Electric of Hayward is starting construction on solar arrays that will cover 6 separate buildings with interconnections feeding individual residences for this low-income housing non-profit.  The total wattage for these projects will be over 175,000 kilowatt-hours of clean and quiet solar energy for 52 families in Sawyer County.
  4. Humane Society of Burnett County (Webster).  Carlson Electric is also going to built a ground-mount system for this wonderful shelter and education center.  The system will be 19 kilowatts in size (58 pv modules x 340 Watts each) and help offset over 50% of the center’s annual electrical use.
  5. Bethel Horizons (Dodgeville).  Member WES Engineering of Madison will be sponsoring and installing this project that will cover 2 buildings with 20 kilowatts each.  The Prairie Center and the Venture Arts Retreat Center will each be generating about 50% of their own power for their electrical needs at these two sites.  Our Co-op will be making over $30,000 in loans to this project to help make it more financially sound for all parties.

There are 4 other host site clients that may be signing contracts in the next week or so. We will feature them in the next e-Newsletter.  Thank you all for your membership, your readership, and your support in purchasing bonds that help finance and make these projects happen!  See you next month.  Until then,

Sunny Regards!
Kurt

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City of Beaver Dam Votes Yes!

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By Kurt Reinhold, 8/23/18

In the late evening hours, after several other contentious decisions, including re-branding the City’s image and logoy, the City of Beaver Dam Common Council Monday night voted 10 to 3 to hire Legacy Solar Co-op to work with (member) North Wind Renewable Energy Cooperative and (member) E3 Lighting to construct two 100-plus kilowatt solar arrays (on the city hall and the Watermark Community and Senior Center) and perform over $31,000 in LED lighting retrofits for the City this fall. The city had announced their hope in a July 27, 2018 article.

This decision sets in motion a new Bonds Campaign to Members who would like to earn between 4% and 6% on Slice-Of-Sun (or SOS) Co-op Bonds.  Legacy Solar Co-op will be making a loan of up to $80,000 to the Tax Sponsor for the solar and lighting project in Beaver Dam.  We have close to $40,000.00 in our Bond Loan Fund currently, so we need to sell another $40,000 of SOS Bonds in the next 6 weeks to meet our goal and complete the capitalization of this very important project. Read more

Update from Kurt

Quick Update from Kurt

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By Kurt Reinhold, 7/8/18

Happy July to you all! I feel like the luckiest guy in all of Wisconsin to be working with such a forward leaning group of people in our Co-op.  I want to thank all of you who decided to join our Co-op ($25/yr or $100/lifetime equity membership) in recent months.

Our membership has grown from 96 in December of 2017 to now over 115 by the end of June of 2018.  We have provided over $800,000 in solar loans through our Slice-of-Sun bond program, and hope to double that by the end of the year.

That’s right, double.

Because of the success of our programs, we have as many as 15 new community institutions who are hoping to get solar projects funded by the end of the year.  That means we need to grow our membership and our bondholders along with it.

So far in 2018, our Co-op has helped organize and develop nearly $1 million of solar in Wisconsin.  We want to stay on this trajectory and develop (and help finance) another $1 million of solar projects in our fine state before year’s end.

Please join our Co-op today and consider our Slice-of-Sun program for your next community solar purchase.  Stay tuned for updates on our many potential projects for the 2nd half of this year!

SASY Goes Solar, Solar Stories from the Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara Neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin.

SASY Neighborhood Solar Report – Trinity Lutheran Church

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Kurt Reinhold – 6/6/18

SASY Goes Solar, Solar Stories from the Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara Neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin.

SASY Goes Solar, Solar Stories from the Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara Neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin (renewwisconsin.org)

Legacy Solar Co-op gets special mention in the SASY neighborhood solar report for our work helping provide LED retrofits and 20 kilowatts of PV on Trinity Lutheran Church, 1901 Winnebago Street in Madison.  Our partners were Full Spectrum Solar and Burke and Mark O’Neal, owners of FSS.  The project has been a huge success and has drawn visitors from other parishes around the state to learn more about how we accomplished this low cost option for houses of faith.

Follow this link to read about several solar successes in these thriving east side neighborhoods here.

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Solar panels on a roof

Should You Add Batteries to Your Rooftop Solar Installation?

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Nickolas Hein – 4/23/18

In the past few years battery technology has advanced at a rapid rate, resulting in a rapid decrease in the cost of electric storage and the associated systems (Fig 1).  Although this has been driven primarily by electric vehicle adoption, home battery systems have been direct beneficiaries. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance “Lithium-ion battery packs are selling at an average price of $209 a kilowatt-hour, down 24 percent from a year ago and about a fifth of what it was in 2010, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance survey shows. The rate has further to fall — reaching below $100 a kilowatt-hour by 2025, according to a report by BNEF analyst James Frith.  Developers of stationary storage systems — like the kind that back up rooftop solar panels — can expect to pay 51 percent more than automakers because of much lower order volumes.”

Recent Cost Reductions for Lithium Ion Batteries - Bloomberg

Recent Cost Reductions for Lithium Ion Batteries – Bloomberg

If you’re considering installing solar panels in the near future, you probably want to consider adding battery storage to your system. We’ve asked Ed Zinthefer, President of Arch Electric, to answer some of the common questions from the homeowners before they install a new system.  Read more

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Spring Member Bond Drive: Get your Slice of Sun now!

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Spring 2018

Anyone anywhere in Wisconsin can become a Member of Legacy Solar Co-op for as little as $25, and once a Member, you are eligible to buy Slice-of-Sun Solar Bonds at $250 apiece.

Why would anyone want to buy Slice-of-Sun Solar Bonds?  Here’s why:

  1. To grow more and more solar projects in Wisconsin;
  2. To earn between 4% and 6% interest on your money;
  3. To support local and statewide clean energy initiatives;
  4. To help community institutions reduce their overhead (lower energy bills);
  5. To build a clean energy Legacy that will last 40-plus years!

Member Bonds are sold by the Co-op in order to support solar projects all over Wisconsin.  The Co-op pays up to 6% interest on your Slice-of-Sun bonds over 12 years.  Members receive both principal and interest payments annually.  The Co-op makes secured loans to qualified solar projects and uses the revenue from those loans to pay back bondholders over the same 12-year horizon.

Read more…

If you are ready to buy Co-op bonds, go to this page for the next step

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2018 Solar Investing

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Tony Hartmann – 2/20/18

No such thing a ‘sure thing’ when it comes to investing, right? Well, if you think the sun’ll come up tomorrow, investing in solar infrastructure is as close as it gets. Since its beginning, the Legacy Solar Co-op (LSC) has facilitated solar investment not only because renewable energy is clean and sustainable, but because it makes sense economically. A lot of sense. Not-for-profits and home-owners almost always see a return on investment (ROI) in the neighborhood of 10-12%, businesses 15% and more. So, the 2018 solar investor can do good and make a sweet return on their investment…

As Don Pardo used to say, ‘but wait, there’s more…’

Legacy Solar Co-op has long been an advocate for energy efficiency efforts, projects that go hand and glove with distributed (pv) energy production. In Wisconsin, the Focus On Energy (FOE) program does more than just reward you (to the tune of thousands) for installing solar PV. You get further cash dividends by swapping out motors, furnaces, water-heaters, air conditioners, light bulbs/fixtures and much, much more. For starters, rate-payers can get FREE STUFF, like LED bulbs and water-saving fixtures just by going here and choosing a ‘pack’.

but again, there’s more… Read more

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Madison nonprofit Housing Initiatives are setting up to save 40% on their power bill

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Housing Initiatives has been providing peace, hope, and shelter for Madison area men, women, and veterans for over 20 years.  They work to end homelessness for those who live with severe mental illnesses.  Legacy Solar Co-op is proud to be partnering with such a wonderful organization.

Legacy Solar Co-op will provide solar on 2 buildings that Housing Initiatives owns and maintains.  Our tax sponsor for this project is a long-time advocate for this and other organizations in Dane County.  Together, we will help Housing Initiatives achieve lower energy bills by helping them generate their own electricity behind-the-meter, saving them about 40% on their power bills.  Read more

Carport sketch

Legacy Solar Co-op teams with MREA on solar carport project

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Legacy Solar Co-op is working with the MREA to develop a 100 kilowatt solar carport to be located on the main grounds of MREA’s headquarters in Custer, Wisconsin.  We will rely on supporters of MREA and members of LSC to buy Solar Bonds to capitalize a fund that will allow MREA to get the best value out of this development.

LSC is looking to sell $240,000 in solar bonds through our Co-op to get this project off the ground this summer!

Learn more about solar bonds and how they help fund community solar projects like this one – while earning you interest!

>> Learn more about the Slice of Sun Solar Bonds program >>