The Antigonish Community Energy Cooperative, exists to facilitate the installation of one million Watts of solar electric generating capacity in the Town and County of Antigonish. This will generate about 1% of the electricity consumed by the Town in one year. It’s a small but important amount. Imagine if we succeed in doing this every year for the next ten years. Considering the Town already generates about 30% of its electricity renewably, we could bring that up to 40%. And, we’ll try to inspire ten other communities to do as we are doing in that time. We are doing our part to bring about a future Nova Scotia which generates all of its energy renewably.
We’re going to do it like this: Members of our Coop who wish to invest in solar for their homes, businesses, or organizations will become a part of our bulk purchase. If we can sign up 100 members to invest in a 10 kW system each – about the amount you’d need to power a typical family home – we will be able to offer each of them cost savings of about 10% off market value. Our members will require less time – about 12 years – to recover their investment than they would on the open market. But the equipment works for about 25 years.
And we’re a Cooperative in the tradition of the Antigonish Movement, which was all about cooperative investment in the common good. Via a small surcharge on our members’ purchases, we’ll raise money for the direct relief of poverty in the local area.