Sunrock Distributed Generation and Watthub Renewables have announced the completion of a 280-kW rooftop solar installation on the Palm Valley Church in Goodyear, Arizona. Financed by a solar service agreement, the installation is expected to cut the church’s annual energy bill by around 30%.
Located in a former multi-tenanted retail building, the Goodyear site is one of two Palm Valley Churches operating in Arizona. In addition to providing religious services, the church runs numerous classes and provides meeting spaces for community groups, resulting in high annual energy use. The decision to transition to solar was part of Palm Valley Church’s mission to improve the sustainability of its operations — and in doing so set a good example to the local community — while also protecting itself from the rising cost of grid-supplied electricity.
Palm Valley’s leadership turned to Watthub and Sunrock to co-develop and fund the project. Watthub also enlisted its sister company, SunRenu Solar, which has considerable experience in developing mid-sized commercial solar projects, as an installation partner. A 622-panel solar system was constructed, using DC-optimized inverter technology to maximize energy production from the solar array and provide module-level monitoring for ease of operation and maintenance.
“Palm Valley Church is one of many local organizations in Arizona that are looking to make their operations more sustainable while also protecting themselves against rising electricity costs — especially following the 17% hike in grid energy costs introduced state-wide last November,” said John McDonnell, co-founder and principal of Watthub. “Typically, financing companies are only interested in funding very large projects, so until now, there have been very few, if any, opportunities to own a solar system for customers of this size. This is where Sunrock is bringing something new to the market. It’s customer-centric approach to empowering communities with clean, renewable solar power is a game-changer for operations like Palm Valley Church.”
Under the terms of the solar service agreement, Sunrock provided 100% of the financing for the Palm Valley solar installation and will own and operate it for the next 30 years. It will sell all the energy generated onsite to Palm Valley Church at a discounted price compared to the cost of grid-supplied electricity.
As part of the agreement, the solar installation will be maintained under contract by SunRenu. This ensures that in the unlikely event of a performance issue or should parts need to be replaced, maintenance work will be carried out by SunRenu on behalf of Palm Valley and Sunrock.
News item from Sunrock Distributed Generation
