Nautilus Solar Energy, LLC, an owner-operator of solar projects focused on community solar markets located throughout the United States, recently announced the acquisition of eight community solar projects in Maine, totaling 47.2 megawatts (MW) from ISM Solar Development, LLC, a developer of large commercial- and utility-scale solar projects. These projects, located in Cumberland, Know, Oxford and York counties, are expected to start construction in Q3 2021. Once completed, they will provide a clean energy option to almost 10,000 households within the Central Maine Power (CMP) electric utility territory.
These projects are part of Maine's Net Energy Billing program, which was amended in June 2019 by Gov. Mills to provide renewable energy benefits and reduced costs for its residential customers. Nautilus is the long-term owner of the projects and is also responsible for acquiring and managing customer subscriptions. Any residential CMP utility customer is eligible to subscribe to the projects through Nautilus with no upfront cost, no long-term commitment and no cancellation fees.
When fully operational, the projects are expected to generate nearly 70 million kWh annually, contributing to Maine's goals of providing economy growth, workforce opportunities and relying on 80% clean energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050.
Additionally, these community solar projects will create over 100 projected construction and ongoing operations and maintenance jobs and are the environmental equivalent of planting over 800,000 trees or taking 10,000 cars off the road for a year.
For more information on this acquisition, read the original press release.