Pine Valley Community Village

LOCATION:  Richland Center, Wisconsin   |   CAPACITY:  179.8 kW   |   COMPLETION DATE: September 2023

SOLAR CONTRACTOR:

 

 

Pine Valley Community Village consists of a 80-bed skilled care facility, and a 16-unit Assisted Living facility.

Pine Valley also provides rehabilitation services including Physical, Occupational, and Speech Therapy – offering in-house rehabilitation as well as outpatient. They are owned and operated by the County of Richland, Wisconsin.

 

The Challenge

Pine Valley uses geothermal for heating and cooling which has significantly reduced their use of natural gas. However, a geothermal system requires a large quantity of heat pumps – which take electricity to operate. They became interested in looking at solar as a way to reduce their electric bill, and worked with Legacy Solar Co-op for help and guidance.

The Solution

Instead of having solar panels on their roof, the solution Pine Valley decided upon was to construct a solar array on land owned by the county; 336 bifacial panels; permanently affixed in one position to supply approximately 17% of their electrical needs.

From the start of construction to the day of the array being commissioned, it was approximately 5 months.

Outcome

September 25, 2023, from Tim Rislow of Pine Valley: “It has only been a couple of weeks since the array was commissioned, but we’re hoping to save in the vicinity of $17,000/year on our electric bill – which, if achieved, would give us a return on investment of less than 4 years – after all grants and credits and donations get applied.

‘When we ‘flipped the switch’ and literally turned the system on – we posted a photo on our facebook page of our maintenance director flipping the switch – and responses to this have been overwhelmingly positive.”

“The staff of Legacy Solar were invaluable in numerous ways to our project, and we would not have pursued the project or been successful in our project, without their help. We would highly recommend them.”  ~ Tom Rislow

 

 

Slice of Sun Solar Bonds

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?