2,000-panel EP solar garden now producing ‘juice’

Nearly 2,000 solar panels atop the Eden Prairie Community Center began generating electrical power on July 10. Minnesota’s newest community solar garden will produce an estimated 1.3 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually, enough to power over 17,000 LED light bulbs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for an entire year.

“That’s a lot of juice,” says Dan Grantier, the solar development manager for Cooperative Energy Futures (CEF), which was the City of Eden Prairie’s partner in the project.

About 125 people – most of them from Eden Prairie – will directly benefit from being subscribers or shareholders in the project, with Xcel Energy lowering the residents’ monthly electricity bill in proportion to the amount of “juice” generated by the solar garden.

Two of those – Jackie Smith and Dr. David Johnson – were on hand July 16 when officials cut a ceremonial ribbon to mark the project’s completion. The two said that promoting renewable energy and saving money while doing so just seemed logical.

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“It seemed like a smart thing to do … the right thing to do,” said Johnson.

Smith missed the sign-up deadline to participate in an earlier Eden Prairie solar garden project at Pax Christi Church. So, when she first heard about the much larger Community Center project about four years ago, she thought, “Whatever it is, I want to be a part of this garden.”

“It made good sense,” added Smith, who also has solar panels atop her house.

Project was six years in the making

Timothy DenHerder-Thomas, the general manager of CEF, acknowledged that the project has been a long time coming. 

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The city began talking with Minneapolis-based CEF about the project in 2018. But COVID-19, supply-chain issues, the threat of tariffs on solar-panel imports, equipment-price volatility, and a legislative change in how Minnesota approaches solar gardens — putting the Minnesota Department of Commerce in charge – all contributed to delays in the project.

“You are test case No. 1,” Pete Wyckoff, Minnesota Department of Commerce assistant commissioner, said about the Eden Prairie project while referring to the state’s new role in solar gardens.” And I am proud and happy that we’ve gotten this far.”

The project was further complicated by the variety of roof sizes and elevations at the Community Center, as well as the heating, cooling, and ventilation systems already sitting on the roof. 

Rachael Acevedo-Hoffmann, a senior power engineer from the project’s contractor, Apadana Energy of New Hope, helped design the EP solar garden. Because of roof conditions, she found that placing 1,989 solar panels and other equipment in a logical and efficient way was a lot like playing Tetris, the puzzle video game where you try to hastily arrange shapes that rapidly descend from the top of your device.

Delays aside, Eden Prairie city officials are hailing the newly operational solar garden as another step toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, a goal laid out in the city’s Climate Action Plan.

A bonus is that a portion of the subscriber slots in the EP program were set aside for low- or moderate-income residents, renters, or immigrants who may be new to the community.

“Twenty-five percent of our capacity was set aside for residents who typically get left out of the whole ‘greening of America’ process, partly because of where they live or just access to the information on some of these programs,” explained Mayor Ron Case.

“We’re so proud of this,” he said about the project overall. “We really take great pride in trying to create an atmosphere making Eden Prairie one of the most advanced or ‘out front’ cities when it comes to addressing climate action.”