As the midsummer sun blazed down at its full noontime strength, the Harvard Solar Garden on Ayer Road came to life. On June 26 the $1.7 million array of solar panels began generating some 294 kilowatts of electricity, which will provide an estimated 25 years of electric power for 41 residences and six small businesses.
Harvard Solar Garden (HSG) is the first community-shared solar installation in Massachusetts, although similar projects exist in Colorado and California. What makes HSG unique in Massachusetts is the concept of shared ownership, through which people whose homes or businesses are not suitable for solar panels can use off-site solar generation to meet their electricity needs.
A model for other communities
The project’s manager and moving spirit, Worth Robbins of Massachusetts Avenue, threw the master switch at the conclusion of an opening ceremony that drew state and local officials as well as Harvard residents.
“This project would not be here without Worth,” said emcee Ruth Silman of Bolton Road, who provided extensive pro bono legal work for HSG. “There were days when many of us were ready to throw in the towel and let some other town be first.” She later presented him with a plaque inscribed to “Worth Robbins, who never gave up.”
State Senator Jamie Eldridge and Representative Jen Benson, both of whom attended the ceremony, agreed that the project would be a model for other towns in Massachusetts. Eldridge called the opening of HSG “a very proud day for Harvard.” Benson said that building a shared solar installation is as much a community endeavor as building a school or a library.
Dr. Dwayne Breger, Director of Renewable Energy Development at the Department of Energy Resources, said that direct ownership of solar generation, like HSG, provides much more value to individuals and also to the community and the Commonwealth than commercial solar projects. Breger agreed that HSG would be a model for many communities.
Several of the speakers referred to HSG’s three-year struggle to get the necessary permits and property tax exemptions. Steven Strong of Solar Design Associates, a Harvard-based company that designed and built the project, said that HSG has faced more difficulties than all his other installations put together—and those include building the world’s first all-solar home in 1979, putting solar panels on the White House in 2002, and providing solar power for the 1996 Olympics.
The main difficulty was in finding a site for the solar garden, according to Robbins, who summarized the history of the project. Local officials ruled that the project could not be built either on land zoned residential/agricultural or on land zoned commercial. The issue was resolved only when a Special Town Meeting in August 2012 approved extending a solar overlay district to cover the area where HSG now stands.
A second major hurdle was reaching an agreement on property taxes for the installation. State law provides a 20-year exemption from paying property taxes on new photovoltaic panels. But Harvard officials declined to extend the exemption to off-site solar. Again Town Meeting rescued the project, with an April 2014 vote for a home-rule petition giving community solar the same exemption as on-site systems.
Nonetheless, the delays had costs. Under the rates and regulations in place in 2011, members of HSG expected to recoup their costs in five to seven years. By this year that payoff period had roughly doubled, up to 12 to 15 years, Robbins said.
‘A better future for the world’
But for many HSG owners, return on investment was not the only—or even the leading—motivation, according to several speakers at the ceremony. Selectman Stu Sklar, who described himself as “a farmer in the solar garden,” said the overriding goal was “a better future for themselves, their community, and the world.”
Steven Strong agreed, saying that HSG was an example of “democratizing solar energy.” Given the pressures of climate change, energy limits, and population growth, Strong said, “The next 20 years will not be anything like the last 20 … The world needs every single solar system.”
The celebration ended with the Prius-powered sound system belting out such fitting songs as “Here Comes the Sun” and “Let the Sunshine In.”
The ribbon is cut as the Harvard community-owned solar garden goes on line after a dedication ceremony June 27. From left: Neeve Connelly, Fiona Connelly, Ruth Silman, Sean Diamond (National Grid), Elizabeth Youngblood (MassCEC), State Representative Jen Benson, Steven Strong, Worth Robbins, State Senator Jamie Eldridge, Gerry Palano (MDAR), Selectman Stu Sklar, Dwayne Breger (DOER), Meg Lusardi (DOER), Nadine Connelly, Rowan Connelly, and Elizabeth Kennedy (MassCEC). (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz))
Note: Reporter Marty Green and her husband are members of Harvard Solar Garden.
Worth Robbins is a co-owner of the Harvard Press.
