Community Solar Gardens Xcel
Xcel energy customers can participate in projects offered by private developers.
Community solar gardens xcel. Advocates say changes are needed to. Members of other utilities in minnesota can subscribe to a community solar garden if one is offered by the utility. The minnesota legislature established an option for customers of xcel energy to support community solar also referred to as solar gardens or solar farms. Csgs are large arrays located in sunny open areas.
Xcel energy community solar gardens program. The community solar gardens csg program is available to any electric customer of xcel energy. You get solar credits on your monthly utility bill. The electricity produced is fed to the grid and credited to a subscriber s xcel energy account.
It s credited at a rate similar to xcel charges its customers but gives the opportunity to reduce their. Solar rewards community developer resources. Our solar rewards community allows xcel energy customers to support solar energy without installing their own solar system. Xcel energy is the biggest utility in minnesota covering most of the population and is the only utility that has a legislation backed community solar program.
Through the program garden operators own and interconnect a garden to the xcel energy electric grid then sell or lease solar subscriptions to xcel energy customers. Solar power from xcel s existing. Sunshare is one of the largest and most experienced community solar companies in the country. Under its renewable energy plan trammell said xcel will increase community solar garden offerings with 170 megawatts of capacity available by the end of 2021.
Community solar gardens csg allow people to support renewable energy through membership. Minnesota solar energy developers said their proposed projects from rooftop arrays to community solar gardens are suffering long delays at the hands of xcel energy hurting customers and. Community solar gardens are by far xcel s largest form of competition xcel currently buys power from solar gardens at 13 5 cents per kilowatt hour on average.