The Solar Array is Under Construction

To supply the energy needed for our mostly electric powered house, we decided to look into a solar PV array. It was planned to be constructed on the common land where the exposure to the sun is much better than on our own roof. After discussing the idea with neighbors in January of 2013, that plan grew into a larger community system with three partners initially (maybe more later). We talked to various installers and decided on a rack-mounted system of slightly over 20,000 kWh annual production capacity.

Permitting and planning took longer than expected and we moved the location due to neighbors' concerns in the end. We also had to set up a legally and financially sound member's agreement and form a LLC to run the system.

It took until September 2013 until construction of our community (net-metered) Solar Array finally began. Better late than never. Here are a few construction photos...

By now, we already learned that smaller electric utilities do not take on new group metered setups any more. They will not offer the 6c adder per kWh generated electricity and also offering much lower rates in general. This is bad news for Solar in Vermont as it makes the whole idea financially unattractive.
So it was not a bad idea to get started with that project long before the house went up.

UPDATE (May 2014): The VT legislation decided to increase the net metering limits from 4% to 15% of the utilities' capacity in their 2014 session. So  net metering will have a realistic chance to become mainstream. Go solar!