Madison Electric Celebrates Beginning of Operations of Largest Solar Array in Maine

Madison Electric Works celebrated the beginning of operations of their solar array on Wednesday.

It's the largest one in the state. The system is built on more than twenty acres of land in Madison and utilizes more than 16,000 330W panels.

It's large enough to power roughly 700 homes and will meet approximately 20% of Madison Electric Works' annual needs.

IGS Solar financed the project and will own and operate the system.

Madison Electric will buy 100% of the power generated at a fixed rate through a long term power purchase agreement.

"All the power that this system produces is sold to Madison under a 25-year power purchase agreement. So they didn't put out any money to build this system itself, they're not responsible for any maintenance of the array at all. We take care of all of that and just provide clean energy to them over that term of the contract," said Patrick Smith, Vice President of IGS Solar.

Calvin Ames, General Manager of Madison Electric, says nearly all of the labor involved in installing the system was filled by Mainers.

He says this solar array will allow them to continue to contain costs for all of their customers while using renewable energy.