Minnesota’s first solar commons to benefit local communities

A University of Minnesota research project is helping communities benefit financially from solar energy through a community-based model.

Vermilion Country School in Tower is the first location for the Solar Commons Research Project, a model that pools solar savings into a long-term trust fund for local projects and priorities.

“Today in the modern world, we tend to think of things governing things and things belonging either to the public domain or to the private domain. But in fact, many things — air, water — actually belong to the commons. They belong to everybody, including future generations,” said Founder and Director of the research project, Katherine Milun.

Milun says the goal is to create equitable wealth for underserved communities.

“Humans used to have all kinds of ways to locally take care of and steward the things that belong to everyone. So, that’s what this project is about. It’s to be able to take sunshine and show how through the technology et cetera, we can have it belong to everyone.”

With funding from Empowering Small Minnesota Communities and the Minnesota Department of Commerce, 88 solar panels with a total of 37-kilowatts each were added to the school, creating clean energy and a solar savings of $6,000.

“Every year for 20 years, the sharing happens and, in this case, it’s the school and the kids that are going to be in charge of deciding what should that money come for,” Milun said.

With the money, Rebecca Gawboy, Community Organizer for Vermilion Country School, says students will decide between an environmental or food sovereignty community project.

“Thee message we’re sending our kids, we’re teaching through this project, is that cooperation, cooperative agreements work better than competitive ones and they’re much more sustainable and they’re much easier to get the community behind,” said Gawboy.

The Solar Commons Project has future plans to install 500-kilowatt solar panel systems in both rural and urban communities across Minnesota.

More information about the UMN’s Solar Commons Research Project can be found here.