Summit Ridge Energy has completed a 6.3 MW community solar installation in Hermon, Maine, the first project in the company’s 200 MW Maine community solar portfolio to reach completion.
The 6.3 MW installation will serve roughly 850 households and small businesses across the state. The project is also part of a 24 MW portfolio of projects that Summit Ridge is developing through a joint venture with Osaka Gas USA. The portfolio will be financed in partnership with Foss & Company and Live Oak Bank. Foss & Company will be providing tax equity, and Live Oak Bank is holding long term debt.
In July, Summit Ridge entered a joint venture with Osaka Gas USA Corporation to construct, own and operate over 120 MW of community solar projects throughout the state of Maine. The Foss & Company and Live Oak-financed projects represented a portion of that portfolio. Portfolio inception, if you will.
Those 120 MW are expected to provide approximately 11,000 residential and commercial ratepayers with monthly utility savings.
The project will operate under Maine’s NEB program, which, similar to community solar, allows customers to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electrical bills with either owned or shared energy projects.
Simultaneously with the announcement of the Osaka deal, Summit Ridge also acquired a portfolio of three Maine community solar projects from Cianbro, totaling 19.5 MW in capacity.
