Creating Local Jobs and Reducing the Cost of Electric
The Community Power Group (“CPG”) is dedicated to ensuring that our solar gardens provide the maximum benefit to the communities in which they are located. To achieve this, CPG works to maximize the use of local labor for the installation and maintenance of our facilities, as well as, sell its power back to the local community at a discount to the cost of traditional power sources.
Local Workforce Development
The solar industry is one of the fastest growing job sectors in the country with a growth rate of 25% from 2015 to 2016. In many communities, CPG partners with accredited non-profit organizations to use our projects as sites for solar installation and maintenance training programs. These partners include some of the most respected organizations in the country. Many of these organizations operate through grants and other donations to help identify and train the next generation of installers achieve a well-paid position in this fast-growing industry.
Discounted Power
Most state sponsored community solar programs enable solar to be sold to a wide variety of community members through something called “net meter credits”. In these situations, our facility generates a “credit” that can be transferred to any customer through the local utility. The customer then receives their normal electric bill that is reduced by the value of the credit. For instance, if the value of the net meter credit is $0.10 per kWh and the customer pays $0.09 for the net meter credit, then the customer receives a $0.01 reduction per kWh (or approximately a 10% discount).
In some households, electricity costs can take up 20% or more of monthly income. The Community Power Group makes an effort to provide discounted energy from its community solar gardens to economically disadvantaged families. By providing discounted power, these households have more financial resources for other basic living needs such as healthcare, education and transportation.
