A big (by NH standards, anyway) solar farm is coming to Warner but what’s really significant is that it is a community-solar project, with 11 municipalities signing on to get savings in their energy bill through New Hampshire’s group net metering program. Details are here.
Group net metering is New Hampshire’s version of “community solar.” Under this state-run program, a “host” develops a community-scale solar project and shares its energy output with “group members” (i.e., subscribers). The project earns net metering credits for all the electricity it generates, and the host typically offers subscribers a portion of these credits as an incentive to join. In this way, subscribers benefit from lower electricity costs with no upfront investment.
Projects of 1 MW or less are open to all types of electricity customers, including residential, commercial, and municipal accounts. Projects between 1 and 5 MW (like Poverty Plains Solar) are open only to governmental entities such as municipalities, public schools, counties, and wastewater treatment plants.
Subscribers must also be located within the same utility service territory as the project—i.e., Eversource in the case of Poverty Plains Solar. That said, subscribers need not receive their electricity supply from that same utility (e.g., Eversource). Rather, they can participate in group net metering while being served by a community power aggregation (CPA) or a competitive energy supplier.
Community solar is a fast-growing part of the solar power landscape, sitting between rooftop solar and utility-owned solar. It’s a very good idea.
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