A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Photovoltaic panels at Flathead Electric’s Stillwater solar garden are selling slowly. According to Ross Holter, FEC’s solar garden chief who spoke at FVCC last night, only 130 or so of the array’s 356 panels have been purchased by members of the rural electric cooperative. The 285-watt-DC panels cost $900 each, and can be paid for in a lump sum or in 12 payments, each $75 and added to the purchaser’s electric bill.
I don’t think FEC expected such slow sales. Initially, panels were limited to one per member. That restriction’s been removed. And the interest free $75 per month payment plan has been added.
Holter said many of the purchasers thus far are people 65 and older who plan to bequeath their panels to their heirs.
Until the end of 2016, purchasers of FEC’s panels can take a 30 percent solar tax credit. That brings the price per panel down to $630, shortening the payback period. After the tax credit expires, the panels will be much more difficult to sell.
FEC may have thought that the project would be so attractive that the panels would sell themselves. If so, that was a mistake. I wonder whether FEC’s sales forecast was based on hard data, on standard market research, or on the enthusiasm of the solar advocates who lobby the cooperative do to more solar projects.
I think FEC would be wise to consider expanding its Stillwater FAQ with more engineering information on the array’s design — why, for example, a tilt of 30° instead of the array’s latitude of 48.3°? — and monthly and hourly outputs, and more information on the behavior of the sun at this latitude.