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The Vineyard Energy Project
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts
Location: Island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Owners: Residents, Businesses, Schools and Towns
Capacity (demo projects + others): 140 kW of PV (and growing)
Online: 2003
Modules: 190W Sanyo modules
Developer: Vineyard Energy Project Team
Cost: about $195,000 for fourteen systems
The Vineyard Energy Project (VEP) is a non-profit organization founded in 2003 that promotes sustainable energy choices through education, outreach and renewable energy projects. The VEP is working to bring increased use of solar energy to Martha’s Vineyard.
The island of Martha’s Vineyard depends almost entirely on imported energy and has a steadily increasing annual energy bill. There are concerns about the ability of the underwater transmission cables to meet the island’s growing demand, as well as political and economic issues connected to the transport of electricity. The transition to a “Renewable Energy Island” is therefore considered to offer economic and social benefits to the community.
With funding from the US Department of Energy's Million Solar Roofs Program, VEP held community energy workshops to raise islanders’ awareness and secured funding for a cluster of PV installations from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC)’s Renewable Energy Trust. From there, VEP facilitated the installation of fourteen highly visible solar demonstration projects across the island. In total, these projects cost approximately $195,000, of which the Renewable Energy Trust funds covered close to 50%. Balance of funds were raised primarily from private sources, either investing in their own renewable energy system or contributing to a public installation. The PV installation on the Steamship Authority System also received $5,000 from a local foundation grant.
In 2004, the Vineyard Energy Project commissioned a 10 Year Energy Action Plan, which aims to reduce energy needs and increase the use of local renewable energy resources. The goal is to produce 1% of all electricity used on the island from solar by 2015. This compliments the original Million Solar Roofs goal of 500 systems (PV, solar hot water, and solar heating) by 2010. While VEP’s first active stage of installing demonstration projects is complete, residents and businesses are still taking advantage of incentives and funding that are available for solar electric and solar hot water systems. This includes State and Federal tax-credits, sales tax exemption, and accelerated depreciation. For solar electric systems, funds continue to be available through MTC’s Renewable Energy Trust, which is supported by a Renewable Energy line item on Vineyarders’ electricity bills.
In addition to energy savings and the incentives described above, PV owners on Martha’s Vineyard have the opportunity to sell the green attributes associated with their energy production to be part of Cape Light Compact Green. The Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance (a partnering non-profit organization) offers to purchase these attributes at a rate of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour for three years (as of 2006). Renewable energy attributes from Vineyard PV are packaged together with those from other renewable sources and sold to Massachusetts and Rhode Island green energy customers.
As of mid 2006, the Vineyard has about 150 solar systems on record, including 85 PV systems installed since VEP’s inception and more than 60 solar hot water systems, some dating back to the late 70's and early 80's.
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