With a flip of a switch and a cheer from the crowd, the members of Plowshare Farm saw the realization of a dream on Saturday – using renewable resources to power essentially all of their energy.
“It’s been a slow, steady buildup to where we are now,” said Kimberly Dorn, director of Plowshare. “It’s been pretty amazing.”
Plowshare Farm is an intentional community with about 40 members in Greenfield. People with various abilities and challenges work dogether to run the farm, its bakery and Localshare, a store and coffeehouse in Wilton. Renewable energy fits well into the mission of the farm, said Dorn.
“Our mission statement has always including caring for fellow human beings, regardless of ability level, and caring for the land that we steward,” said Dorn. “We want the land to be better for our time here.”
The farm began striving to change how it produced its energy in the late 1980s, when the furnace in the – at the time – only house on Plowshare bit the dust and the farm began to look at other heating options – eventually settling on a wood boiler.
Now, all four of Plowshare’s residential houses are heated with wood boiler systems and the production of firewood at the farm is a year-round activity.
In 2008, the farm built a community building that uses geothermal for heating and cooling and a solar array to generate electical power, which was large enough to provide the electical needs of the community building and the barn.
But on Saturday, the farm celebrated the completion of its largest energy project to date – a 180 panel ground-mounted array that will produce approximately 66,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. That’s enough energy to cover approximately 97 to 98 percent of the farms electricity needs.
The array was installed by Mark Weissflog of KWManagement in Nashua. The array is enough to power eight or nine residential homes, he said.
The array is built high enough off the ground that it will be productive year-round, without snow build up blocking the panels.
It also saves the farm at least $11,000 per year in energy costs – a number that is higher than what the farm makes annually at its bakery or store and is a significant number for their budget, said Dorn.
“We do have to blend our lofty ideals with a real practical bent,” said Dorn. “If you’re going to keep the land healthy, you have to keep your costs low. It’s a practical idealism.”
That sometimes means having to wait for progress, said Dorn. Plowshare first began discussing the idea of a larger energy system five years ago. Three years ago, they settled on a solar array and made their plans. And a year and a half ago, construction began. By doing things slowly, and allowing the installers to come out at their convenience and using volunteers to assist, Plowshare was able to save about 20 percent of the total cost of the array – which was about $150,000. That, paired with a regular donor whose contributions the farm has been storing away for multiple years in anticipation of the project and grant funds from the Public Utilities Commission which covered about half of the cost, Plowshare has ultimately been able to meet its goal.