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Presenter outlines community solar plan offering 15% discount and consolidated town billing
Summary
A presenter told the Shapleigh board a community solar program would invoice subscribers at a 15% discount off CMP-equivalent charges, offer consolidated monthly billing for multiple town accounts, and require auto-pay for enrolled accounts; the company emphasized monthly 'by usage' billing rather than 'by generation.'
A company representative gave the board a detailed briefing on a proposed community solar program that would offset customers' Central Maine Power charges and invoice participants at a 15% discount.
The presenter described the mechanics: solar production reduces a subscriber's kilowatt‑hours and the company would bill the town or resident "for every $100 we pay on your bill, you would get a bill from us for 85," a 15% discount, the presenter said. He added the firm's billing is monthly and based on usage rather than generation, which he said prevents summertime overbilling for users who consume less during peak production months.
The presenter proposed summary billing for entities with many accounts, saying the company "offer[s] a summary billing where we just give you 1 invoice each month, and it'll have every account that you had offset allocated," to avoid dozens of separate solar invoices for each municipal meter. He also said enrollment payouts to the town would be triggered after a subscriber receives their first bill to prevent short-term sign-ups and immediate cancellations.
Town staff and trustees asked about community enrollment windows, whether enrollments create new solar farms, and how subscribers could exit the program. The presenter said enrollments would use existing farm capacity rather than automatically creating new farms and confirmed the firm has run similar programs in Elliot and Brooksville and that Brooksville raised about $6,000 under the model. Board members voiced interest in more detail about customer protections and outreach before promoting the program to residents.
