Solar array installed at Avery Hill

LACONIA — Lakes Region Community Developers has installed a solar system at its Avery Hill affordable housing development. Avery Hill is a cluster of duplexes on Grove Street and Lougee Court near the LRGHealthcare campus in Laconia.

Census and federal energy data show that energy expenditures by low-income households in the Lakes Region eat up between 34 and 37 percent of household income.

“Our goal with this project is to ensure that total housing and utility costs at Avery Hill remain affordable well into the future so that our tenants don’t have to choose between paying their electric bill and buying groceries or medicine,” said Carmen Lorentz, executive director of Lakes Region Community Developers.

The Avery Hill solar system eliminates the electric bill for 12 households. 

Funding for the project was provided by the Thomas W. Haas Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, New Hampshire's Renewable Energy Fund, and the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority’s Clean Energy Fund. The array was installed by ReVision Energy.

Karen Cramton, director of the Sustainable Energy Division of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, said, “Avery Hill is one of the first projects to be awarded a grant from the new Low and Moderate Income Community Solar Competitive Grant program, supported by the Renewable Energy Fund. This project demonstrates that solar energy has a meaningful direct benefit for low- and moderate-income families.”

Katy Easterly Martey, executive director of the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority, said, “Our Clean Energy Fund exists to help organizations be efficient operators and good stewards of the environment. The Avery Hill solar project will reduce LRCD’s carbon footprint, contribute to the organization’s sustainability and furthering of its mission, and benefit the families they serve.”