Another Month, Another Cover Story — Solar for Campgrounds

Nuance Energy was once again featured on the cover of a popular trade magazine—this time in the January edition of Woodall’s Campground Management. Billing itself as “The Voice of the North American Campground Business,” this monthly publication has a readership of 14,000 RV park and campground owners and managers. The article, titled Integrating Solar Power Into Your Campground, begins on page 18.

The cover and most of the article features the Flag City RV Resort in Lodi, California. This was rather interesting project featuring both ground and rooftop arrays, along with one on a new solar carport. The project also presented some serious challenges, including permits involving two fairly strict jurisdictions, undocumented underground utilities, a sloping terrain and constant traffic. More details about the project are available in both a fact sheet and a press release.

RV parks are often ideal sites for solar energy for two reasons: They have a large footprint and, as the equivalent of little towns, they consume a lot of electricity. RVers also tend to like the idea of conserving energy and getting it from renewable sources, making a park with solar energy production all the more appealing as a place to stay for a while.

The large scale of the installation—a total of 530kW—enabled Flag City to reduce its electric utility bill from nearly $20,000 to under $20 in a busy month. The resort now pays virtually nothing for electricity month after month after month. These results are even more impressive considering that RV park owners are unable to control how and when their guests use electricity and, therefore, cannot control their energy spend for demand charges and time-of-use rates.

Although the writer did a great job on the piece, he was unfamiliar with solar energy and construction projects, so he got these two details wrong:

• The last paragraph on page 18 states, “We broke ground not realizing that there were two jurisdictions…” We were, of course, fully aware of that when we applied for the permits, but the hold-up delay mentioned was indeed the case.
• On page 19 in the second column just below the first picture, the writer seemed to misunderstand net metering with the claims, “They are now actually paying power back to the grid…” and “…there is quite a bit of energy load coming back.”

The writer also mistakenly identified Ricky Gill as the co-owner of Club Royal Oak RV Park in the caption on the top photo on page 18; he is instead the co-owner of the Flag City RV Resort, as mentioned in the article.

To learn more about our complete range of turnkey solar solutions for you project, schedule a free consultation with the Nuance Energy team today.