By Mark Harrington
Fifty low-income families across
Long Island will soon have access to discounted power from a solar array
recently installed atop the Hauppauge headquarters of Long Island Cares food
bank.
The project was one of the first
to be installed under a LIPA program called “community solar,”
which allows energy developers to sell power from their arrays to
subscribers across the Island who can’t afford or whose homes can’t accommodate
solar panels.
Long Island Cares, the food bank
started by the late musician Harry Chapin, paid about $416,000 for the system,
which consists of 852 solar panels on its warehouse roof. It will sell the
energy to 50 low-income families screened by the agency at a discounted rate of
about 16 cents a kilowatt-hour, said Scott Maskin, chief executive at SUNation
Solar Systems, which installed the system. That’s around 25 percent less
than a typical Long Island Power Authority rate. Most LIPA ratepayers pay
about 21 cents a kilowatt-hour.
Long Island Cares’ system is
expected to pay for itself in around seven years, after which the food
bank can use revenue generated from the system to fund other programs,
Maskin said Friday at an event celebrating the system’s completion. The New
York State Energy Research and Development Authority provided a rebate of
$37,674 for the system, he said.
Already, the agency has qualified
14 subscribers for the cheaper energy, with the processing work for the rest
expected soon, said Paule Pachter, chief executive of Long Island Cares.
“If the roof at [Long Island
Cares] can help people to become more self-sufficient, then we have done our
job well,” said Pachter.
Four other community solar
projects are under construction throughout the Long Island Innovation Park at
Hauppauge, Maskin said, but the potential exists for a much larger buildout of
solar in the area. There are 1,300 companies and a potential 20 million square
feet of flat rooftop space available for solar.
LIPA’s community solar
program in recent months has come under fire from solar installers such as
Maskin because LIPA on Jan. 1 converted to a new state-subscribed scheme
for compensating solar developers for their power in a way that sharply
discounts the previous standard. State Assemb. Steve Englebright (D-Setauket)
has set a public hearing for Feb. 18 at Suffolk County’s William H. Rogers
building in Smithtown at 11 a.m. to examine whether current community
solar compensation schemes are adequate.
But Tom Falcone, chief executive
of LIPA, who attended the Long Island Cares event, indicated that the authority
may be moving to make community solar somewhat more generous than it now is
under the complex, state-mandated pricing scheme called Value of Distributed
Energy Resources. He promised an announcement in about a week, including
further news about a separate program of LIPA’s called Solar Communities.
“I really do think this is a
landmark project,” Falcone said of the Long Island Cares installation, which
will provide discounts of up to 25 percent for the energy. “It’s a good model,
and we will further expand these programs,” enough to provide discounted solar
power for 3,000 low-income homes over the next two years, he said.
Long Island now has around 50,000 homes and business with solar panels, but Falcone noted many cannot afford the average $30,000 price tag of systems. Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Northport) said, “To be able to say the public-private sector can help families struggling” to pay their electric bill? “That’s awesome.”
Originally published by Newsday.
