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.
How We Helped
LSC helped by providing project support and advising during the project from start to finish. We coordinated project planning activities and created a summary presentation for stakeholders. We provided financial cost-benefit analysis and supported the writing of the RFP and helped them consider and apply for available grants. When estimates came in LSC presented a comparison of solicited proposals and acted as liaison between the installer and Pine Valley staff. Finally, we provided follow-up to project completion, including assistance with applying for the Direct Pay under the Inflation Reduction Act funding
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
Solar Consulting
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Slice of Sun Solar Bonds
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