New agrivoltaics farm can power 300 homes

“But aren’t all farms solar?,” Lynne Wesenberg asked herself as she and her husband, Dave Dell, drove by a sign for a solar farm on North 95th Street one day. It’s a route they often take, having lived in Niwot for decades. Then they saw an ad in the Left Hand Valley Courier about Jack’s Solar Garden, the 24-acre plot of land they often drive by that is being turned into a community solar project. Wesenberg and Dell became the project’s first subscribers, paying a one-time subscription fee in exchange for discounts on their monthly Xcel bill for the next 10 years.

“It just seemed like a good thing to do,” Dell says.

“For the environment,” Wesenberg adds.

Community solar is an emerging industry across the nation — a way for renters or homeowners without suitable rooftops or means to install their own panels to engage with renewable energy. (Reports from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden estimate that only 22%-27% of residential rooftops can host solar panels.) The idea is simple: a solar array is built near existing infrastructure and renewable energy is fed into the utility grid, replacing fossil fuels and paid for by voluntary subscribers who in turn receive solar credits.

In 2010, Colorado became the first state in the nation to pass shared renewables legislation, which was expanded again in 2019 to allow for larger projects. And although there are dozens of community solar projects around the state, Jack’s is a bit different, owner Byron Kominek says. Named after Kominek’s grandfather, who purchased the property in 1972, Jack’s will be home to 3,200 solar panels producing approximately 1.2 megawatts of power — enough to power 300 Boulder County homes. But it will also have community supported agriculture (CSA), an expansive pollinator habitat and a rigorous research component in partnership with Colorado State University, the University of Arizona and NREL, all open to school and community educational tours.

“We are focused on making this not only a site that’s going to provide clean electricity and food for the surrounding community, but it’s also a really excellent learning opportunity and a research opportunity,” say Jordan Macknick, lead energy-water-land analyst at NREL. He’s been working with Kominek for the past two years to get Jack’s up and running and will be leading the research at the site.

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