WILLISTON — Vermont has become the latest test bed in a national effort to reduce the cost of solar energy production.
The Vermont Regional Test Center, which will join five others across the country, is part of the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, a program designed to reduce the cost of solar energy.
Vermont is a good location to analyze the cost of solar production in a northern, wet and cold region of the country, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who announced the initiative at a news conference Monday on the construction site for the center which is adjacent to IBM’s Williston facility.
Sanders, who serves on the Senate energy and environment committees, said the new “national lab” will ensure that the state continues to make progress on renewable energy innovation.
“I think we believe that we are one of the leaders in the effort to transform our energy system,” he said.
The $3 million project, funded by the Department of Energy, is scheduled to be completed within months. Sandia National Laboratories, leader of the five-site collaborative research initiative, will monitor the center for performance and reliability.
The goal of the SunShot Initiative is to have 15 percent of the country powered by solar energy in 2030. To get there, the initiative aims to reduce the cost of solar by 75 percent by 2020, Sanders said.
The seven-acre testing site is expected to generate 300 kilowatts of solar power, which will be integrated into the regional power grid, ISO New England. The renewable energy will offer IBM a substitute to the costly fossil fuels the grid operator usually depends on during the peak power season, Gov. Peter Shumlin said.
Shumlin said the state has tripled the number of kilowatts generated from solar in the past two-and-a-half years. However, the next step is to reduce the cost of solar energy technology.
Sanders has been like a “dog on a bone” in securing this partnership with Sandia, Shumlin said. Sandia was attracted to Vermont because of its per-capita leadership in private sector renewable energy jobs, renewable energy goals and the state’s track record of collaboration between various sectors of the economy.
“You can see that here today, all levels of government, utilities, universities, private sector and community organizations are all engaged in contributing,” said Steve Rottler, vice president for Sandia National Laboratories.
Based in New Mexico, Sandia National Laboratories is operated and managed by Sandia Corp., a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corp., according to the company’s website. It operates the labs as a contractor for the Department of Energy.
The new project will provide data related to the state’s climate and work to integrate the solar power into the state’s smart grid, which uses digital electric meters to study the state’s electricity flows. The smart grid was built with $69 million in federal funds and matching contributions from the state’s utilities.
