Cold Spring To Add Solar Garden, Cold Spring Bakery First To Sign Up For Service

COLD SPRING -- A community solar garden is coming to Cold Spring within the next year.

SunShare will be building the city a 5 Megawatt solar garden about 5 miles north of ROCORI High School.

Karen Gados is the Director of Communications at SunShare. She says there are many factors that led them to build a solar garden in Cold Spring.

"We always look for land that is close to some customers we know will want to subscribe and we also look for communities that are interested in hosting a community solar garden," says Gados.

The community solar garden allows residents living in apartments, businesses, and homeowners who couldn't afford their own systems, now have the option to choose.

The Cold Spring Bakery is one of the first businesses to sign up for solar energy from SunShare's community solar garden.

Bakery co-owner Lynn Schurman says the solar garden allows business to have an easier way to cut down on energy costs.

"It just made it so much easier for businesses to participate in generating solar electricity to help not only their business but to help the whole grid," says Schurman.

The agreement has SunShare providing 400 kilowatts of energy to the bakery, which is equivalent to powering 120 homes for 25 years.

"I just think it's important that all of us look at ways that we can either generate electricity in self-sustainable ways or find ways to cut our consumption," says Schurman.

Gados says they hope the Cold Spring Solar Garden will be available by the end of the year.

"We are hoping to get the solar panels into the ground as close to the end of the year. If not the end of this year then hopefully first quarter 2016 when some of that snow begins to melt," says Gados.

The Cold Spring Solar Garden will be available to all residents and businesses in the county, who are customers with Xcel Energy, and provide about 1,500 homes' energy needs for 25 years.