Monolith Solar Unveils First Community Solar Farm

Field changing from hay to electrons as region’s first community solar array‍‍

Shares offered to customers who couldn’t afford their own individual units

By Brian Nearing

Times Union

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A solar farm in a former Rensselaer County hayfield is helping power buildings in the Albany City School District and more than two dozen private homes and apartments.

About 1,200 panels in a five-acre field in Pittstown represent the first so-called “community” solar array in the Capital Region, said project builder Mark Fobare, CEO of Rensselaer-based Monolith Solar. Community solar aims at bundling together potential customers who may not want or be able to install individual solar units.

Owning a share of the array is somewhat like buying a car, he said. Customers pay off their ownership share with fixed monthly payments — usually ranging from $100 to $150 — for between five and nine years. The power produced is sold into the grid at retail rates.

At the end of the payments, the customer essentially has no power bills as the array consistently feeds more power into the grid than the customer consumes, said Fobare. The units have 25-year warranties, and can be expected to function for as long as 40 years, he said.

Customers do have to pay an annual maintenance fee to Monolith to cover property taxes, maintain the 400-kilowatt solar farm, repair potential panel damage and keep the site mowed and trimmed back, said Fobare.

With community solar, homeowners are subject to power outages if the grid goes down, unlike customers who own their own rooftop systems.

Standing in the muddy field, Rensselaer County lawmaker Leon Fiacco, who also is a dairy farmer, said community solar projects are a good use for poor-quality farmland. “This is heavy, wet ground. Use it for this, and leave the rest of it for the cows and the people,” he said. “We have a lot of poor-quality land they can use.”