by SC Publisher Shannen Hayes
The City of Sanibel continued its commitment to island resilience by partnering with Solar United Neighbors through the Switch Together program. In September 2022, the council voted to participate in a similar solar co-op hosted by SUN, and on Tuesday, Dec. 12, they voted again to partner in the Switch Together.
The initial co-op was set to launch in October 2022, a week after Hurricane Ian. While it launched a year later, the storm hindered its success, SanCap Resilience Chair Bob Moore told the council on Tuesday. Sanibel residents accounted for a quarter of the solar installations in Lee and Collier counties through the co-op.
City of Sanibel Chief Resilience Officer Ashlee Painter gave a presentation to the council on SUN’s Switch Together, a residential rooftop solar group purchasing program. She said a benefit of Switch Together is its larger scale, with a combined population goal of 250,000 people in Southwest Florida, giving it greater group purchasing power than a co-op.
Additional benefits of SUN’s Switch Together are:
• Provide residents and business owners access to group purchasing of solar energy and battery backup to achieve a 15 to 25 percent discount.
• Help residents and business owners reduce energy bills and promote local energy resilience by using battery storage to provide power to homes or businesses when the grid is down.
• Give residents and business owners access to vetted installers with free support from an unbiased, nonprofit organization through the planning and implementation of their solar project.
Through a partnership with SUN, the city will provide staff time to review SUN-created branded education materials and agree to promote the program to residents and businesses. Outside of staff time, there is no cost to the city to participate, while still providing residents and businesses with the opportunity to save on solar installation costs, Painter told the council.
Council Member Richard Johnson, who has worked with SUN as a business owner, said its reliable information on solar energy is its biggest asset. He added that the local power co-op, LCEC, was “wonderful to work with” when he installed solar panels across the entire roof of his business.
Johnson explained that, since we live where the sun shines almost constantly, energy demand is high, and peak demand is very expensive for utilities to generate. So “by installing rooftop solar, you shave that peak, and by shaving that peak, it benefits everyone on the grid,” he said.
“I would encourage this council to move forward with some direction to our city manager (Dana Souza) to engage Solar United Neighbors and make this conduit of information, no pun intended, available to our community so folks can learn more about this and make the best decision they can for themselves.”
Council Member John Henshaw noted that many people will have questions about rooftop solar and its installation, including the city’s codes for it.
Council Member Laura DeBruce added that the placement of backup batteries should be addressed, especially following the lithium battery fires in electric vehicles and golf carts across the island after Hurricane Ian’s severe flooding.
“We learned a very hard lesson,” she said, “with the way that salt water interacts with lithium batteries,” and those fires as a result.
City Manager Dana Souza said the Florida building code stipulates that electrical systems, including solar battery backups, are located above flood level. Moore later added that there are many battery options that are less prone to catching fire.
Painter said city staff will work to ensure every question has an answer and that any issues are brought before planning commissioners or the council.
Vice Mayor Holly Smith made a motion to partner with SUN in Switch Together, and it was unanimously approved.