Cozy home to solar energy projects Hearth property now

Martha's Vineyard YMCA, which receive a discounted rate as nonprofit organizations,power inverter and also the Edgartown National Bank and Tisbury Farm Market. They purchase utility credits Mr. Bennett receives from NSTAR for the solar energy his projects generate to offset their electricity costs from NSTAR.

Mr. Bennett offered a simplified explanation how the pricing works, using the Charter School in a hypothetical example.

"Let's say I had 1,000 credits in my account from what the solar array produced and I'm transferring 100 percent of those credits to the Charter School," Mr. Bennett said. "If they have a $1,000 bill from NSTAR, they would owe NSTAR zero.

And let's make believe I gave them a 10 percent discount. They would then pay me $900 for my transferring the credits to them and save $100 in doing so. Whatever the discount rate is, that's how it works."

A new lease on light

On a bright sunny day last Thursday, December 13, Mr. Bennett, Ms. Maida, YMCA financial development director Sarah Soushek, Tisbury Farm Market owner Elio Silva, and a Charter School delegation including students, Mr. Hall, and development director Paul Karasik, met at the Watcha Road site to celebrate the project's completion.

"By your committing to purchase the power inverter  made by this project, you made it possible," Mr. Bennett told everyone.

In an email in response to questions emailed from The Times, Mr. Karasik said the Charter School's decision to "go green" was made by MVPCS administration in March 2012 in response to a proposal from Mr. Bennett, who is the parent of a former student and has been the school's electrician since 1996. The Charter School hopes to save 10-15 percent on electricity costs, Mr. Karasik said. The term is unlimited and can be cancelled at any time.

"We believe that we are the first school in the state, public or private, to go fully green," he said in his email.

With the enticing incentives for solar projects, they have gained in popularity and number on Martha's Vineyard. Edgartown, Tisbury, and West Tisbury have all entered into agreements with the Cape and Vineyard Electrical Cooperative (CVEC) to build solar arrays on town land at no cost to the towns, and to run the facilities for 20 years in exchange for tax breaks and incentives from the state. In a divided vote, the West Tisbury selectmen voted on December 5 to enter into an agreement with CVEC to allow the cooperative to build a photovoltaic array at the town landfill off Old Stage Road.

Over the past year Vineyard Power switched its focus from wind energy to solar, with the creation of Vineyard Power Solar (VPS).

The solar subsidiary recently financed and leased space in the Cronig's Market parking lot in Vineyard Haven where three solar canopies have been installed.

In fields off Watcha Road in Edgartown, a site once envisioned as a neighborhood of 11 affordable homes called Cozy Hearth, rows and rows of solar panels now glimmer. Instead of the sounds of children at play, on sunny days there is a strong hum in the air as machines convert direct current produced from solar energy into alternating current that goes into the electrical grid.

The private solar energy project by Bill Bennett, an Island electrical contractor, includes two arrays with 1,250 solar panel apiece, on two one-acre parcels, capable of an annual production of 250,000 watts each.

Ten years ago Mr. Bennett, who owns Bennett Electric in Vineyard Haven, and some of his employees, friends, and family members pooled resources to purchase the Watcha Road site, which included three parcels totaling almost 11 acres. Their unique proposal to build 11 affordable houses there received approval from the Martha's Vineyard Commission, with many conditions, after a long public hearing process in which it encountered fierce opposition from abutters.

Subsequent review and additional conditions imposed by the Edgartown Zoning Board of Appeals ultimately rendered the project economically unfeasible. Although Mr. Bennett and the not-for-profit Cozy Hearth Corporation (CHC) won an appeal to have the ZBA's decision overturned in court, they gave up in 2009 after nearly three years of legal wrangling and the Edgartown ZBA's third appeal. At that time Mr. Bennett said the cost of carrying the mortgage was $6,000 a month, and that the CHC participants wanted out. He put the property on the market as three parcels in the fall of 2009.