Nautilus Solar Energy and Veolia North America (VNA) are teaming up to support members of the Rhode Island Public Housing Association (PHARI) on a project that will provide guaranteed energy savings to the area's housing authorities and power thousands of low-income residents across the country of renewable solar projects.
Efforts to be one of the first in the country to bring multiple public housing authorities together under a single renewable energy contract will include the construction of three solar panel fields totaling more than 55 acres. The panels will provide power to nine separate housing authorities in Rhode Island. The projects are in the early development phase and construction is expected to start in the first half of 2022.
The fields are primarily in the cities of Exeter and Smithfield and will provide more than 20 million kWh of electricity to housing authorities in Providence, North Providence, Newport, Cranston, Smithfield, Warwick, Warren, Bristol and Lincoln. The agreements offer guaranteed savings over applicable electricity tariffs, reducing the operating budgets of housing authorities in a region with some of the highest energy costs in the country.
"We are proud to bring our experience of partnering with PHARI to support innovation that brings clean renewable energy to everyone in Rhode Island and, more broadly, the environmental change that needs to happen everywhere," said Mike Byrnes, senior from Veolia North America Vice President and CEO of SourceOne, VNA's energy consultancy. SourceOne has been an energy advisor to PHARI for over 10 years, providing energy procurement and risk management services to all member organizations.
The project is expected to result in energy cost savings of approximately $ 30 million over the next 20 years.
"This partnership is important because it embodies Nautilus' promise to provide equitable and affordable access to community solar for all residents of Rhode Island," said Jim Rice, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Nautilus.
With the advice of PHARI from Veolia North America, Nautilus was selected by the Board of Commissioners to each of the nine housing authorities as the sole developer for community solar projects from start to finish. Veolia North America through SourceOne supported PHARI throughout the process and provided scope expertise and technical solutions to optimize sustainability and cost efficiency.
“We were proud to be working with Veolia North America and PHARI members on these important and groundbreaking projects,” added Jason Su, Structuring Associate at Nautilus. “This was the first remote net metering project in which a group of individual housing authorities worked together to increase their purchasing power. As a result, hundreds of public housing residents will benefit from these clean, affordable solar projects. ”
As the long-term owner of the portfolio, Nautilus will be responsible for overseeing construction, day-to-day management and maintaining long-term performance over the estimated 25-30 year life of the projects. The energy generated by the projects will be fed into the electricity supply area of the Narragansett Electric Company, a subsidiary of National Grid.
Image: "Installing Solar Panels" by OregonDOT is licensed under CC BY 2.0