Solar farm near CB is finally producing electricity

More solar coming!

By Mark Reaman

After several months of sitting idle while waiting for some final parts after most of the construction was completed, the Oh Be Joyful solar farm located south of Crested Butte started producing power last week. Employees of the Gunnison County Electric Association (GCEA), Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, and the Paradise Power Company were there last week to do final testing and commissioning. The switch was then flipped to the on position.

“The OBJ array was energized and commissioned last Wednesday (April 15) and is now generating as the sun shines!” reported GCEA strategy, execution, technology and member experience manager Matt Feier. “The longer than anticipated delay in energizing came from a supply chain delay for the metering equipment. You may still see some GCEA line workers and Paradise Power Company staff around the array this week making a few fine-tuning adjustments, but the array is on and operating as planned. We are very excited for this to start producing electricity. We initiated planning for this project in 2020.”

The solar farm will generate 2,609 megawatt hours per year on average. Feier said that equates to roughly enough electricity to power 334 average GCEA served homes per year.

The towns of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, Vail Resorts, the Adaptive Sports Center, the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory and Crested Butte South POA are all purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from the array’s production. Feier explained that will offset their electricity use with the local, renewable, non-carbon emitting energy produced from the array. “These RECs commitments have allowed the array to be developed without needing a rate increase (for the GCEA membership as a whole) to pay for the array’s development,” he said. “GCEA is also seeking a 40% federal credit through the Inflation Reduction Act for the array’s construction.”

Paradise Power Company is the Engineering, Procurement and Construction that GCEA worked with to develop the OBJ array. As an FYI aside, when asked who will shovel off the solar panels in a real winter with real snowfall, Feier said no one. “We have budgeted for power production loss due to snow coverage,” he explained. “There will be a longer article that addresses this in the upcoming Colorado Country Life. The panels are bifacial, so even when they are covered by snow, there will be some production from light reflected off the ground and snow.”

Feier relayed that the, “GCEA is also planning to energize the Gunnison River Solar array soon, pending the delivery and installation of the solar switchboard…which has been subject to the solar industry’s current supply chain challenges.

“Further, GCEA is working to partner with other cooperatives on a larger regional solar project located in another part of Colorado through Tri-State’s Bring Your Own Resource program,” Feir continued. “If achieved, this solar development will save money and lower the carbon intensity of the energy GCEA supplies.”