Solar Demonstration Project

North West REC completed the installation of a 39.36 kW solar array at our headquarters facility in Orange City in 2014. This is a demonstration project and we are partnering with a few of our associated organizations including Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange, National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation and National Renewable Cooperative Organization. The primary purpose is for us to learn more about renewable energy and specifically about solar.

​

As there continues to be a growing level of discussion and promotion of solar energy, it was determined by the Board of Directors and management of the Cooperative that it could be very beneficial for us to install a solar system and to share what we learned with our member-owners and our legislators. In addition, what we learn from this demonstration project will be very beneficial to us as we continue to evaluate our net metering policy and develop future rate structures.

​

We are pleased to share a few pictures of the solar array and some graphs of the initial generation output. You can also see the real time generation output. We also have included a question and answer piece about our net metering policy and our interconnection agreement.

​

If you have any questions about this project or are interested in discussing our interconnection and net metering policies, please contact us at 1-800-766-2099.

​

Our Solar Demonstration reached its 8 year anniversary in July 2022. What have we learned since then: Read Here

​

Below, you can see the KWh produced during days with varying degrees of sunlight.