Dear Members
I would first like to apologies for not submitting an update last month, the last 60 days has gone by very quickly and it seemed every day during this period the progress with the AGRIS Solar Co-operative project was changing. I am pleased to announce that we have started to receive our FIT contracts from the OPA. The first one came in last week and we expect another 3 soon. As a reminder the reason this is such a huge milestone is that it cements the future of this program and allows us to build and get to final completion. As a reminder this process allows the Co-op to transfer 50 individualmicroFIT conditional offers into 1 FIT contract all at $0.802 / kW.
Agris solar Co-operative Gardens
As mentioned above “The Gardens” are 50 – 10kW projects combined into 1 – 500 kW power plant that is located on 1 – 7 ½ acre plot of land. The following diagram is a engineering drawing of what one would look like:
The Garden also has the capabilities of having an overbuild of 20% which would bring the capacity of each Garden to 600 kW.
20 Year Payments
I have recently been asked by a few Members the following question; “How does the delay effect my payments”.
All current Members who have been receiving lease payment (7 ½ % returns on their initial $20,000 investment) will receive 20 years of Lease Payments and 20 years of Preferred Share Payments when the Preferred Payments begins. If you were to review the original Offering Statement, the payments went out until 2031, this will now increase by the number or years we have been delayed or approximately 2035/2036.
Please note a NEW Member starting in 2014, would only receive payments for 20 years from the time they sign up. Their Membership has no affect on the original Members other than they would contribute to absorbing the cost of the Co-op over more Members.
We understand that it has been a longer delay then originally planned. We have managed through many obstacles over this delay and we feel that we have come out ahead of where we originally all planned to be. The next two months will involve the final signoff by Hydro One and the Ministry of Environment that the properties we have chosen to build the Solar Gardens can get connected (this is called the CIA or Connection Impact Assessment) and pass all environmental requirements (this is called the EASR or Environmental Activity and Sector Registry). Please note that if one of our properties do not pass either the CIA or EASR the OPA will allow us to move to a new property. We are very confident that we have done our diligence on each of the properties and do not see any issues.
I will update everyone again in December, at this time we will have all our contracts and be much further ahead on the above mentioned process.
We always appreciate the calls or emails from Members when you notice issues with the units, please keep sending them into Jackie Flynn at 1-877-247-4701.
Please call with any questions.
AGRIS Solar Co-operative Inc.
Sean Kelly
Director Member Services, Government Relations
AGRIS Solar Co-operative
Tel: (905)829-3336 x141
Mobile: (416)919-1890
Email: seank@sparksolar.ca