{"id":177,"date":"2012-03-11T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/new-solar-panels-at-okra-paradise-farms.html"},"modified":"2024-06-17T12:28:55","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T16:28:55","slug":"new-solar-panels-at-okra-paradise-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/new-solar-panels-at-okra-paradise-farms.html","title":{"rendered":"New solar panels at Okra Paradise Farms"},"content":{"rendered":"We’ve added 60 new solar PV panels to our old 20 panels at Okra Paradise Farms,\r\nbringing our production up to about 15KW DC:\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n

\r\nGretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman on the new panels on the roof of the farm workshop at Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 January 2012.\r\n
\r\nPhoto CC BY-ND<\/a> Okra Paradise Farms<\/a>\r\n<\/center>\r\n<\/small>\r\n

\r\nYou can see \r\nthe old panels sticking up on the left,<\/a>\r\nand we’re sitting on some of the new panels, which continue on the lower roof\r\non the right.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThese panels were purchased with the assistance of a\r\n\r\nUSDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) 25% grant<\/a>:\r\n

\r\nEligible projects include those that derive energy from a wind, solar,\r\nbiomass, or geothermal source, or hydrogen derived from biomass or water\r\nusing wind, solar, or geothermal energy sources.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nThe REAP program \r\nwill probably be renewed this year<\/a>, so if you have a farm, you could apply.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWe also applied for and got a\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nU.S. Treasury 30% grant from the\r\n\r\n1603 Program: Payments for Specified Energy Property in Lieu of Tax Credits.<\/a>\r\nThat program was funded by the\r\n\r\nThe American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act)<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nFinally, there is the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA) 35%\r\n\r\nClean Energy Property Tax Credit<\/a>,\r\nwhich will apply in parts over four years.\r\n

\r\nThat all adds up to 90% covered by grants and tax credits,\r\nwhich is a pretty good deal.\r\n

\r\nNow that remaining 10% is still a significant amount;\r\nlike the price of a small car.\r\nBut in 7-15 years (how long it will take to pay off this system,\r\ndepending on how you figure it),\r\nwhat would \r\n<\/a>the value of a car be?\r\nMuch less than when you bought it.\r\nMeanwhile, these solar panels will be generating almost as much\r\npower as they are now, and they will continue to generate for\r\nat least a decade more, probably much more.\r\n

\r\nThe big missing piece is up-front financing.\r\nFor more on that, see other blog post.<\/a>\r\n

\r\nMeanwhile, we have here on our workshop roof a proof of concept,\r\noperational right now.\r\n

\r\nThe little dogs wanted to know what we were doing on the roof:\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n

\r\nPicture of Brown Dog and Yellow Dog by Gretchen Quarterman\r\nat Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 January 2012.\r\n<\/center>\r\n<\/small>\r\n<\/center>\r\n

\r\n-jsq\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’ve added 60 new solar PV panels to our old 20 panels at Okra Paradise Farms, bringing our production up to about 15KW DC: Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman on the new panels on the roof of the farm workshop at Okra Paradise Farms, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 January 2012. Photo CC BY-ND Okra […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,39,68,40,6,572],"tags":[576,580,584,579,3,575,582,2,408,577,2760,573,581,574,2819,578,167,583],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-community","category-development","category-economy","category-okra-paradise-farms","category-renewable-energy","tag-2012-01-29","tag-commodity","tag-distributed","tag-gefa","tag-georgia","tag-grant","tag-investement","tag-lowndes-county","tag-market","tag-nrel","tag-okra-paradise-farms","tag-panel","tag-private","tag-reap","tag-solar","tag-treasury","tag-usda","tag-utility-scale"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-2R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9491,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/9491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}