Community and commercial solar projects completed with help from Legacy Solar Cooperative.
LOCATION: Milwaukee, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 77 kW | COMPLETION DATE: March 2021
SOLAR CONTRACTOR: Arch Electric
Kathy’s House is a hospital guest house committed to providing affordable lodging and caring support in a “home away from home” environment for families who need to travel to Milwaukee, Wis. for medical care. We serve approximately 3,000 patients and caregivers annually who are receiving advanced care at local hospitals. Most guests have a loved one with cancer.
LOCATION: Dodgeville, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 40 kW | COMPLETION DATE: October 2018
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
The Prairie Center and the Venture Arts Retreat Center will each be generating about 50% of their own power.
Bethel Horizons is located on more than 548 acres bordering Governor Dodge State Park. Our mission is to develop and perpetuate a physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual environment which will strengthen and enhance the understanding of a person’s proper relation to nature, to self, to others and to God.”
(From Solar for Good grant)
Horizons is affiliated with Bethel Lutheran Church, Madison, Wisconsin and Lutheran Outdoor Ministries, an association of ELCA camps across the country.
LOCATION: Solon Springs, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 109 kW | COMPLETION DATE: July 2020
SOLAR CONTRACTOR: Carlson Electric
Solon Springs School is a Wisconsin public K-12 education organization located in Solon Springs, Wisconsin, in the northwest part of the state.
For most schools, it is the expense of installing solar, tied to buy-in from the school board and the eventual buy-in of the community, that are barriers. It all starts from an idea and an individual or individuals to champion this idea and see it to fruition. When one of Solon Springs School’s science and math teachers heard this idea directly from a community member, she saw the educational opportunities for students.
She said: “The idea of generating our own electricity (and perhaps selling some downstream) fits directly into my curriculum and is the direction I believe the entire country should be heading. As a teacher, I can show students directly what is going on with solar generation at our school instead of just looking at something in a textbook or online. I can get real numbers from our bookkeeper to show how much we are saving and sometimes how much revenue we are producing.”
With the assistance of Legacy Solar Co-op, they were able to partner with a local for-profit entity that could utilize the federal tax credits. In addition, LSC helped analyze the different system proposals and educate District personnel about the differing system makeups.
Legacy Solar Co-op partnered with co-op member and solar installer Carlson Electric (Hayward & Hudson, WI) to help Solon Springs School District get 109.5 kilowatts of solar (300 panels) on 2 flat roofs at their Baldwin Street, K4-12 school building.
In addition to lowering the school’s operating costs, students will experience and learn about renewable energy first-hand. Prior to the announcement to this project, the district had already decreased their energy consumption by replacing old lighting with LEDs and installing new heating and cooling systems. The solar array now supplies about 50% of the school’s annual electricity needs.
The Solon Springs School District was awarded a $124,500 grant by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC), which provided half the cost of the solar array. Through a public-private partnership set up by Legacy Solar Co-op and this grant, the district paid just 20% of the cost of the entire project. Mark Stensvold of Bennett, a member of the Solon Springs Educational Foundation, said “Once I understood what Legacy Solar Co-op was doing, it just made sense.”
Thank you to the district staff, administrators, school board, and all the local and state professionals and volunteers who helped make this happen!
Dahlberg Light & Power Company serves Doulgas, Bayfield and Washburn Counties and now has 20 customers running on solar power and Solon Springs School District will be their largest.
“I am excited that we have been able to partner with so many individuals, organizations and companies to have most of this project funded by different grants and solar investment programs. This solar project will serve as a model for other schools to consider and with the energy use kiosk that will be located on-site, students will experience firsthand knowledge of the use of solar and its savings to the environment and budget.” ~ Frank Helquist, District Administrator
Legacy Solar Co-op sells Slice-of-Sun Solar Bonds to any member who would like to support a Solar Legacy project like this one, and earn up to interest on their bonds purchased through the co-op. Ready to get involved?
LOCATION: Multiple locations in Sawyer County, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 120 kW | COMPLETION DATE: May 2020
SOLAR CONTRACTOR: Carlson Electric
Sawyer County Non Profit Housing Development (Galaxie Apartments) provides affordable housing for seniors and people with disabilities at four locations in Sawyer County, Wisconsin. The apartments are run by a full-time manager and a full-time maintenance man, with a Board of Directors overseeing the total operation.
LOCATION: Spring Green, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 18 kW | COMPLETION DATE: December 2018
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
Christ Lutheran Church has served the Spring Green, WI community for 135 years. In 2018, the co-op began planning another phase of their history: generating power from the sun. The resulting 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. Read more
LOCATION: Fitchburg, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 105 kW | COMPLETION DATE: August 2019
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
Blackhawk Church in Fitchburg is the most recent addition to an institution that has called the Madison area home for over 50 years. With locations also in Middleton and downtown Madison, the congregation serves thousands and outreaches to community organizations and schools throughout the area.
LOCATION: Madison, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 83 kW | COMPLETION DATE: October 2019
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
The First Unitarian Society (FUS) of Madison is a community of spiritual and ethical seekers that inhabits a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. FUS is one of the largest Unitarian Universalist congregations in the United States, totaling over 1,400 members.
Over the years, FUS staff and board, the Sustainability Ministry Team, with the support of the FUS community, have developed a sustainable, carbon neutral vision, which now includes a 83kW solar panel system that was added to its campus in October of 2019. The new array was placed on the flat-roofed portions of FUS and outside the green roof on the Atrium addition and has the capacity to generate about 90,000 kW-hours of electricity annually – more than a quarter of the electricity it consumes, or about nine average-sized U.S. homes worth of energy. The system, designed by Full Spectrum Solar, maximizes the energy the building can generate with the roof space available.
The solar project is a major step toward the ministry team’s sustainability goals. Together with the solar project, the efficiency improvements will save money and get FUS toward the team’s goal of carbon net neutrality or better. FUS hopes its efforts will inspire its members to be more sustainable themselves.
LOCATION: Verona, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 10.8 kW | START DATE: December 2018
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
Camp Shalom has been in operation since 1954, making it the oldest (and its the largest) day camp in Dane County. Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Madison and residing within the Goodman Jewish Community Center, it, along with Camp Shalom Noar-Bogrim, which has educational and engaging programming from 6-9 grades, serves over 1,000 children at its beautiful location in rural Town of Verona. Camp Shalom has a track record of never denying a child a camp experience because of financial need.
The Goodman Jewish Community Center has long had a commitment to sustainability. Legacy Solar Co-op was happy to expand the Federation’s sustainability goals by adding a photovoltaic electric, roof-mounted system on the roof of a smaller building behind the main camp structure, as well as the pergola in front of the building.
The system, which consists of 72 cell mono-crystalline solar modules, will produce a minimum of 12,000kWh annually, or about 40% of their energy usage. After 25 years, the system is still expected to produce at least 80% of current, installed capacity. This project lowers the camp’s utility bills making more money available for outreach to families in need and summer programming and camping experiences for our youth.
LOCATION: Madison, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 19 kW | PROJECT COMPLETED: December 2018
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
Founded in 1974, the Literacy Network teaches reading, writing, communication and computer skills to approximately 1,000 low-income Dane County adults each year (90% are people of color; 67% are women). A staff of 28 and nearly 900 annual volunteers help participants achieve financial security, well-being and deeper engagement with their families and the community.
In fall 2016, after renting for more than 40 years, Literacy Network purchased and renovated the building at 701 Dane Street, with nearly four times more space than their previous location.
LOCATION: Oregon, Wisconsin | CAPACITY: 190 kW | COMPLETED: December 2018
SOLAR CONTRACTOR:
The Oregon Ice Arena is a non-profit 501(c)(3) facility in Oregon, WI. with the mission of providing the best ice skating experience possible by maintaining a clean and safe environment for all ages.
Ice arenas have to operate heat pumps every day of the year in order to keep the air temperature near the ice as close to freezing as possible. The hottest days of the year take the most compressor activity so not only will this array use the sun’s energy to lower the arena’s electric use, the fact that the solar array takes up over 12,500 square-feet of south-facing roof means that it also shades the roof from the sun. Read more
2018