Fedco Goes Solar!
With the overwhelming support of our members, we contracted with ReVision Energy of Portland, ME, to install a ground-based photovoltaic system that, using 176 solar panels, will generate an estimated 94% of our entire cooperative’s electrical needs. Our decision to do our part to stop burning fossil fuels is in keeping with our belief that we all need a stable climate in which to grow our food and support our agriculture.
When we turned to our members to help us launch our Solar Project we were overwhelmed by their response. While most such appeals are lucky to generate a 2% response rate, we were astounded to achieve one of 7.77%! Our members financed the entire upfront cost of the project, and then some, helping us to get through our traditional autumn and early winter cash flow ebb without skipping a beat.
“It’s up to us—up to all of us—to change the world so every time we look around, we recognize those basic principles of life…I want to talk about our shared responsibility to leave this place better than we found it. Not better from a corporate, make-more-money mode, but a place of beauty, a place that gives us great pleasure throughout our days and throughout our lives. Because that sense of beauty, of pleasure in what we are doing each day, is what is going to carry us forward through the difficult times that we live in now, and the more difficult times that lie ahead.” –Russell Libby
Solar Panel Update, Fall 2020: Our 54.56 kW solar array began producing electricity on January 3, 2017. To date it has produced 264.47 MWh of electricity, and we have kept 185 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. Our peak production month to date was July 2019 when we generated 8.906 MWh. We thank our member donors and lenders who made this expensive project feasible for us!
