Plainfield Township, just north of Grand Rapids, is slated to become one of Michigan’s first municipalities to install a floating solar farm by 2024. A move that leaves many wondering if this approach is the right step forward.
This from survivethenews.com.
The Detroit News reported:
White Pine Renewables, a San Francisco-based solar developer, is partnering with the township in this endeavor, proposing to set up solar panels on a small pond to power the local water treatment plant.
This pond is situated on a decommissioned gravel pit adjacent to the plant, where the floating solar panels are expected to absorb sunlight and convert it into reusable power.
According to managing partner and co-founder, Evan Riley:
White Pine Renewables is no stranger to floating solar farms, with one in Healdsburg, California, and two more under development in Corcoran and Petaluma. In addition, the company has two ground-mounted solar projects in Adrian and the Village of Addison in Michigan.
While the vision of harnessing the power of the sun on a floating platform may seem like an exciting novelty, it’s worth examining the financial implications of such a project.
As Riley admits:
The cost of electricity from ground-mounted solar projects is less than floating farms.
Given this fact, many are left to wonder why Plainfield Township wasn’t evaluated for a more traditional and cost-effective installation.
Riley said:
After going out and doing the site assessment with the city’s engineering team and the city’s utility team, we found that there just simply was not enough space by their water treatment facility to do a ground mounted project.
We evaluated a floating solar project and effectively found that the economics while difficult, still worked.
Township manager Cameron Van Wyngarden explained the choice but failed to address the elephant in the room—cost.
Van Wyngarden said:
Solar produces a varying amount throughout the year and that actually works really well with a water plant because we produce a varying amount of water for our customers throughout the year that tends to correspond with the seasons similar to solar.
More from The Detroit News:
Electricity from the solar farm will cost the city less than from Consumers Energy. The project will deliver savings to the township in year one, which will grow over the 35-year lifetime of the solar panels.
Van Wyngarden said:
White Pine and Plainfield Township have proposed a power purchase agreement for 800 kilowatts, so the township would have zero upfront cost but would continue to buy power from the floating farm over a roughly 30 years.
Riley said:
We’re expecting savings in the first five years to be roughly $100,000 and then lifetime savings will exceed $2 million.
The way that it works is we sell energy to the city of Plainfield at a cost that is less expensive than the local utility. So the amount of money that we get is proportional to how sunny and snowy it is. … It’s a services-based contract.
Riley continued:
The project has been approved by Consumers Energy to be hooked up to the power grid eventually but is currently still in the contracting phase.
Van Wyngarden said:
Supply chain and financing issues have delayed the project, and the earliest construction could start is 2024.
Riley affirms he is optimistic:
[T]he project will be hooked up to the grid by the end of 2024.
Final thoughts: I want to be positive about experimentation and new ideas, but at the moment I can’t help but recall Murphy’s Law—“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
Further, I don’t trust solar power, and a floating solar farm in Michigan does not seem ideal—ice, hail, long overcast winters.
However, ending this on a positive note: Plainfield Township, Michigan, will be spending taxpayer money so a million dollars here and a million dollars there will require several years of costly experimentation and repairs before the project starts getting into real money.
