Solar gardens coming to La Crosse County

You buy subscription, Xcel builds the array

La Crosse County will be part of Wisconsin’s largest community solar garden program. 

In an announcement today, Xcel energy says it plans the program for both La Crosse and Eau Claire counties and will total two megawatts but will eventually increase to three megawatts. Read about it here.

“We’ve been hearing from our business customers and residential customers that they want more of their power supplied through renewable-type energy, and we feel this is a good solution,” Mike Herro from Xcel said. “It’s easy, flexible and it’s local.”

The plan is to operate the garden like a subscription service. You subscribe to the solar arrays and Xcel builds them. 

Xcel says it will offer the solar subscriptions at a cost of nearly $1,800 per kilowatt with a deposit due up front. For a 200 watt panel, the cost is about $350 and should offset about 3 percent of an annual household utility bill. 

The subscriptions are for 25 years and Xcel figures it will take about 18 years to pay back the investment in the solar panels. 

Essentially you will own a solar panel or two or up to 400 kilowatts worth of sun power, and Xcel will credit you based on the percentage you own.  

Depending on the number of subscriptions it gets, Xcel says the solar gardens should be operational by the end of the year. The solar gardens will be built by a San Francisco company.