Kalamazoo Solar reports electricity production on track after first year in business

The first year of operation for Kalamazoo Solar shows that even though Michigan’s weather is fickle, the amount of electricity a solar array can generate can be predicted.

“We ended the year within 0.5 percent of our projected output,” says Connor Fields, who designed the array of 756 solar panels on a 1.5 acre solar energy farm in Galesburg. Racks that allow the panels to be repositioned to take advantage of the changing angles of the sun. Fields calls the company the most efficient of the larger arrays that have been built in the state.

Fields also says they are finding when viewed over a long period of time electrical generation can be predicted.

They have a 12-year contract to feed their energy to Consumer’s Energy and the solar array, which Fields developed along with his father, Sam, has produced slightly under 250 megawatt hours since it came online in February 2010. The company believes that’s the most electricity created by a solar array in Michigan.

But just as important is the experience and knowledge the company has gotten in putting up the array and operating it in the past year.

“Because of what we and others have learned in the past two years we can build the same size facility as Kalamazoo Solar for about 80 percent of the cost we originally paid,” says Sam Fields. That trend should continue as long as they continue to build projects and learn more about how to make them better and less expensively, he says.

Helios Solar, the Fields’ second alternative energy company,  is currently bidding on as many solar construction opportunities as we can.  “We are trying to come up with new and innovative ideas to cut costs and make projects economically attractive,” Connor says.

The state of Michigan has a few roadblocks it could clear to make that easier, Sam says. He suggests all real and personal property taxes for solar projects like theirs should be abated, considering the tax bill the company received for 2010 was $28,000, more than the retail value of the power it produced.

He also would like the state to revise it’s law requiring 10 percent of the electric power sold in Michigan to come from renewable sources to be amended to require a specific part of that 10 percent be from solar energy producers in Michigan.

“We’re currently losing projects to such things as landfill gas, wind energy produced in Indiana, and hydroelectric power generated in Ohio,” Sam Fields says.

Writer: Kathy Jennings
Source: Connor Fields, Sam Fields, Helios Solar