Over the past several months, George and I have been working on a proposal for a community solar project for Shoreham, which we are really excited about. We've been hard at work developing a model where those wishing to participate are truly the beneficiaries and reap not only savings on their electric bills but also are able to receive the 30% residential tax credit on the panels you purchase without having to install the supporting solar infrastructure on your property. We will be holding a meeting on February 23rd (Sunday) at the Shoreham Elementary School Gym from 2 PM to 4 PM to share our findings and walk through how we believe the project could work with the most benefits to everyone wanting to participate. Our initial thought is that we'd like Shoreham residents and businesses to have first priority for participating in the solar project. The only requirement is that you are a Green Mountain Power customer - you don't even have to own your own home. If you been thinking about solar, this would be an easy way to get started, where you'd only need to purchase the number of panels that you can afford today. It would be our goal to start additional projects in the future as the demand warrants. So you could purchase a few panels now and more in the future.

We also plan to have someone available that can speak to the benefits of using highly efficient cold climate heat pump technology which could help cut your heating costs and also provide you with air conditioning in the summer. The neat thing is that you could purchase several solar panels that would offset the electric costs associated with operating the heat pump to help with both heating and cooling. This would allow you to control your future heating costs instead of being at the mercy of future fuel price increase.

If you have questions or cannot attend the meeting but would like more information, please let me know by responding to this post. Over the next week, we'll be announcing this in the paper and around town. Hope to see you there!