**Title**: Energy in the North - Travis Million
**Date**: February 26, 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Travis Million

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;19 [Travis Million] It's far less expensive for a homeowner to be able to participate in a community solar program than it would be to buy all the panels and put them up on their house.

00;00;24;22 - 00;00;49;03 [Amanda Byrd] This week on Energy in the North, I speak with Travis Million, president and CEO of Golden Valley Electric Association. GVEA has a 563 kilowatt solar farm near Van Horne Road, and they're in the process of converting the array from utility ownership to a community solar farm. I began the conversation by asking Travis, What is a community solar farm?

00;00;49;03 - 00;01;14;18 [Travis Million] So community solar is similar to net metering like we were talking about before. But instead of the homeowner having to go purchase the panels and all the equipment and put it physically at their house, community solar would be a solar farm where people can just purchase individual panels that are operated and maintained by the utility and not by themselves. So from a cost effective perspective, it's far less expensive for a homeowner to be able to participate in the community solar program than it would be to buy all the panels and put them up on their house. Really, one of the big benefits is for those members who don't own homes that are still members of the utility. They may live in an apartment, for example, and they don't own the apartment, so they can't put solar panels up, but they can participate in purchase the panels through a community solar program. Community just meaning all the members of Golden Valley have the opportunity to participate in purchasing the panels and whatever benefit the panels produce in electricity, they can reap those benefits. Yeah. So the subscriptions definitely an annual subscription. Otherwise you would have people saying, I only want to subscribe for, you know, June, July and August from the sun shining and, you know, not pay for anything during the winter times or it's sunshine as much. So it would be an annual membership to participate in the program. 

00;01;37;03 - 00;01;55;10 [Amanda Byrd] So it's kind of like a community supported agriculture where we pay the farmer for a monthly delivery of vegetables and we ride the storm with the farmer. If it's a bad year, we get a low amount of vegetables and if it's a great year, we get a bumper crop.

00;01;55;12 - 00;01;58;01 [Travis Million] That is a great analogy. Yes, absolutely. 

00;01;58;01 - 00;02;15;24 [Amanda Byrd] I might have to rethink this with my husband. If we don't put solar on our house and we just buy some of your panels. I'm a member of the utility. We own the solar farm as members. Right. How do we pay into the subscription if we are already members? How will that work?

00;02;15;24 - 00;02;47;18 [Travis Million] There was calculations done to figure out what debt service was still left on the solar panels, what the total life expectancy was still remaining on the solar panels because they've been installed for a few years. But there's still quite a bit of life left in them as well. And then it was calculated on how much per month it would be to basically purchase that panel for the life of that panel on a monthly basis. So it's actually quite low, like you said, comparative to if you went and bought a brand new panel and installed it on your house. And so that calculation is based on basically what the what the life of the panel is and what the expected cost would be. 

00;02;47;18 - 00;02;55;29 When are we going to see the launch?


00;02;55;29 - 00;02;59;22 [Travis Million] We're right now filing with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to go through that process, take some time. And so we're targeting for about an August timeframe to roll that out. 

00;02;59;22 - 00;03;04;10 [Amanda Byrd] That's really exciting. Yeah, So are people already starting to request 

00;03;04;10 - 00;03;28;07 [Travis Million] I don't know if we've heard any formal request yet, but this was something that was driven by and started with our member advisory committee or MAC from feedback that they'd heard from members. And so it was really a market driven program that it made its way to the board and got approved by the board to pursue filing with the regulatory commission. So yeah, obviously there's been a number of people that have been interested in it for quite some time too, to get the interest of the market. 

00;03;28;07 - 00;03;39;00 [Amanda Byrd] Yeah, so maybe you'll be building another solar farms and if there's a lot of interest, if it fully gets subscribed,

00;03;39;00 - 00;04;00;09 [Travis Million] That's the intent, is that we would look to build something more to allow people to subscribe to the solar farm. We have now has about 1700 panels, so we could get 1700 subscribers. And if we would button up close to that, then we would look to expand. 

00;03;47;06 - 00;04;00;09 [Amanda Byrd] Travis Million is president and CEO of Golden Valley Electric Association. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.