Renewable Properties, a developer and financier of utility solar projects, has signed a Minnesota community solar subscription agreement with Caribou Coffee Inc., a coffeehouse chain with 300 locations nationwide.
The partnership was arranged by Terasota Partners, a Minnesota-based community solar subscription manager. The deal subscribes Caribou to multiple 1 MW community solar gardens throughout Minnesota. Over the term of the agreement, Caribou will receive utility bill credits on its retail electric bills throughout the state based on the number of kilowatt-hours produced by the company’s share of the projects.
“These are our first two community solar gardens in Minnesota, and this is just the beginning,” says Aaron Halimi, founder and president of Renewable Properties. “Big brands like Caribou have huge energy costs and, more often than not, a footprint that’s spread out. Thanks to the public service commissions and forward-thinking utilities like Xcel Energy, businesses like Caribou can benefit from community solar gardens and leave the engineering, permitting, construction, maintenance and operation of large-scale solar projects to us.”
“Community solar allows businesses, residents and public entities to subscribe to an off-site solar installation without hosting the project on their property,” says Jake Wanek, vice president of subscriber acquisition at Terasota Partners. “Working with the teams at Caribou and Renewable Properties has been easy, and we hope to work with both parties on more projects very soon.”
The average annual production from the two solar arrays is 3,612,949 kWh, which is enough to power 347 single-family homes per year.
Photo: Bobak Ha’Eri [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]
