Queen Anne’s County in Maryland has recently taken a bold step in supporting the production and consumption of clean energy by subscribing to a local solar project with Nexamp. The 2 MW AC solar project is estimated to save the county more than $40,000 in the first year, and nearly $1 million over the lifetime of the project, all with no upfront cost to the county.

The Nexamp solar farm will be qualified as an Aggregate Net Energy Metering (ANEM) project. Under the ANEM program, county governments, municipalities, and non-profits can subscribe to third party-owned solar projects without the operation and maintenance responsibilities that come with project ownership.

“By supporting this project, Queen Anne’s County has demonstrated its commitment to advancing clean energy deployment in the community. In addition to the environmental benefits, this project will significantly reduce their electric costs for years to come, freeing up funds that can be used on other priorities,” said Chris Clark, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Nexamp.

As the impacts of the pandemic begin to be felt across local budgets, counties, towns, and non-profits are looking for low-risk ways to cut costs and make a positive environmental contribution. Nexamp’s unique fixed discount model offers guaranteed, predictable savings each year no matter how electricity prices fluctuate.

“Nexamp’s fixed discount model was of particular interest to the county,” explained Jim Moran, County Commissioner for Queen Anne’s County. “As opposed to a fixed price model, where savings may not exist if electricity prices fall, the fixed discount model guarantees our electric bills will always be less than they would have been without solar.”

Savings are realized by allocating the kilowatt-hours generated by the project to the customer’s utility bills, which offset kilowatt-hour charges that would have otherwise been owed to the utility. Nexamp invoices the customer the following month for the credited amount minus a fixed discount, thereby producing savings on each kilowatt-hour generated by the project.