Quaker Oats leads solar energy project

by Staff Report

December 1,2007

Ray Magruder, the health, safety and environmental manager for the Quaker Oats plant in Columbia, said he approached city officials last spring with an open-minded offer.
The company was looking for ways to encourage environmental protection and energy conservation, and he asked, "What can we do as a company to help?" 
Magruder said Quaker Oats "is committed to environmental sustainability" and pointed out that PepsiCo, its parent company, is the nation's largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy credits. 
City officials visited the plant, corresponded by e-mail, held several meetings and decided that providing solar energy was the best answer to Magruder's question.
They looked at several funding models before Quaker Oats decided that the best option would be for the company to purchase a solar panel system. It would cost an estimated $35,000 to $45,000 and produce five kilowatts of electricity. The solar panels would be installed on the roof of the manufacturing plant.
The city pointed out that businesses are eligible for a 30 percent tax credit on solar power system purchases, which made the project more economical.
The Quaker Oats initiative would be the first phase of a project called Solar One—so named because its goal is to produce 1 percent of Columbia's electric energy from solar power by 2023. Achieving the 1 percent goal would require the installation of 11 megawatts of solar production. 
The city's Water & Light Department proposes to purchase solar energy from Quaker Oats and other businesses that join the project and resell the energy to customers on a volunteer basis. 
Customers who subscribe to the service would have to purchase at least 100 kilowatt hours of solar energy per year, which amounts to one percent of the annual electric use of the average residential customer and would cost about $42.  
The Quaker Oats corporate office approved the project, and in mid-November, the City Council approved the project's concept. The proposal is now being crafted into an ordinance that will be the subject of a public hearing in January.
In a letter to Columbia Water & Light Department Director Dan Dasho a month ago, Magruder wrote that Quaker Oats perceived the solar project "as a means of leading the way for other … manufacturers to be involved in the Solar One process as it moves forward and evolves into a much larger initiative."
After 10 years, Quaker Oats and other companies that join the project would be able to use the solar energy systems for their own use.
Quaker Oats has about 250 employees at the 100,000-square-foot plant, which makes grain-based snack foods.

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