The City of Tallahassee hosted a community meeting on Thursday, Jan. 11, at the Tallahassee International Airport where Origis Energy provided an overview of the recently completed solar farm and an update on the expansion of the solar program.
The meeting also allowed project managers to share details about the new solar farm and answer questions from utility customers.
Information provided at the meeting verified that Origis Energy is a privately held company by investors that reside outside the United States.
Tallahassee Reports recently published a story about how payments made by customers will benefit a foreign company and will have a negative impact on the local economy.
When asked about jobs created by the new solar farm, Johan Vanhee, who serves as Managing Director of Operations and Business Development with Origis, said that solar farms are not labor intensive and the project will not create any recurring jobs.
Tallahassee Reports recently published an article addressing the jobs issue.
Vanhee also verified that the $32 million Origis project would benefit from a $9 million tax credit funded by U.S taxpayers.
One question by a citizen about where the solar panels were manufactured was never completely answered.
Vanhee said the panels were purchased from an “American holding company,” but he said he did not know where the panels were manufactured.
At the meeting, Reese Goad, the Acting City Manager, verified that the City of Tallahassee is interested in adding as much solar “as we can get.”
Also, in a contentious part of the meeting, Goad fielded questions about how the city’s solar subscription program is competing with local solar companies.
Goad said the subscription program allows for people who, for various reasons -such as too many trees in their yard, are not able to use roof top solar.
However, Goad did confirm that even homes that would benefit from roof top solar can opt to subscribe to the city program.
Goad said the City is not competing with local solar companies.
However, Matt Chentnik, thew owner of a local solar company, sees it differently.
“The solar subscription program hurts us. It is in direct competition with us,” Chentnik said. “The city is going after our customer base. We have lost customers already.”
City’s Solar Farm Meeting Confirms Foreign Ownership, No New Jobs, $9 Million Tax Credit added by Staff on
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I couldn’t figure out why Soros was so interested in Andy. Now we know. They want to coloniallize Tallahassee. They want us to simply be obedient slaves that pay tribute to our colonial masters in return for the energy we generate ourselves. They want to go to a carbon based economy so they can regulate the amount of power we can produce. They want to flood us with us with refugees who are selected for neediness and literally dying for the opportunity to submit to the nanny state and move to Disney world.
To top it off “they” are literally Nazis not just collaborators and if they hold true to form probably pedophiles. What is Belgium famous for? Arms manufacture, chocolate, bankrupt African colonies, and child sex trafficing rings. Why would Florida look to Belgium for technology?
Belgium has a population of 11 million. How can they possibly be economically or technologically competitive with companies in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida which have a population 3 times their size and have put men on the moon.
I think this pretty much sums it up
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JJXspT2VtOE
This is the same as the City getting in to other businesses such as the restaurant business with the same result. They just want to grow the size of government and squeeze out private industry.
The response from Vanhee of not knowing where the solar panels are produced quickly leads one to think they were manufactured overseas. Probably in a country subject to tariffs then sent to a country not subject to tariffs and eventually to the US. Two years ago, I wrote a MyView in the Democrat urging local government to help create a solar industry to build, install, and maintain solar panels for homes and industry. This was before the solar farm was approved. Yes, many homes have trees, but the new development at Welaunee, those along Thomasville Rd plus office and other commercial buildings are great markets for solar. However, how does one compete, now, with the City!?
A new Solar Co-Op lead by the League of Women Voters and ST starts its marketing outreach this month so time will tell if they can compete. I hope so –
I’m certainly not for government competing with private business. In a perfect world it should not. I have a small business and know first hand how that can hurt and hurt bad. But its happens, it will continue to happen, and we have to adjust. In a business like solar it will also happen. So to say that solar should be “exempt” from any government competition is a stretch.. then it would have to be for all small businesses and that is not going to happen.. ask your plumber or electrician.. they feel the long arm of government competition as well.
Sam; Tallahassee Reports have documented on several occasions when City employees have come to the homes of elite city management [Gillum, Fernandez, and others too] and performed both electrical and plumbing jobs for free for our elite “usual suspects” while on the taxpayers City payroll. Oh and by the way City trucks, supplies. and other City resources were used also.
I’m assuming this is the example of the long arm of government competition you are referring to – but really can not determine if you are trying to defend our corrupt lefty liberal local political and city elite – or if you already know our local “usual suspects” use the system for their own personal benefit and are driving that point home to the good readers of TR.
Either way welcome to TR Sam there is a lot to be learned here at TR about the true self serving nature of our local “usual suspects”. TR is turning lock step “D” only voters to vote instead for the honest candidate every day!!!
So – if I have this right:
1) The City solar initiative has little or nothing to do with our local economy and 2) Local Leaders Report Tallahassee has Fastest Growing Economy in Florida, But Can’t Explain Why; and 3) Goad/COT wouldn’t answer where the solar collectors were manufactured? Local solar companies are being hurt by this program?
Curious economic dynamics…for the fastest growing economy in Florida; Mayor Gillum?
> The City solar initiative has little or nothing to do with our local economy
Why would it? People like the idea of buying power from renewable sources; you don’t want solar power as part of your profile, no problem, *you have to sign up to get as part of your energy mix*. Every single electric utility in the country is putting a solar or wind (or both) component into their generation mix. Like literally every one.
> Local Leaders Report Tallahassee has Fastest Growing Economy in Florida, But Can’t Explain Why
You’re confusing, ‘Don’t Respond To Bomb Throwers From The Internet Or Grumpy Old Men Shaking Their Fist At Commission Meetings’ with ‘can’t explain why’. The entitlement mentality that every manufactured ‘gotcha!’ question from the dregs of the Internet be answered immediately, lest we have evidence for a conspiracy is the embodiment of snowflake society.
> Goad/COT wouldn’t answer where the solar collectors were manufactured?
Like, why the hell would they care? When you go to work, do you ask where your desk was manufactured, or the cabling that connects your device to the network? We live in a global economy whether you like it or not.
In all likelihood, the panels are manufactured in China, which heavily subsidizes investments in solar. Again, so what? If they’d paid 1.5X the price for ‘made in murica!’ solar panels, no doubt, you’d wonder aloud why the bean counters were saving your precious tax dollars.
Deep State – sounds like you work for the City Solar ‘Team’ and bought into these unfounded Gillum-nomics. Yes? Careful not to continue to follow them to far down their chosen slippery paths.
Good reply there Major.
Deep State said ‘made in murica!’
He/she is most likely a troll and/or one of Mayor Andy’s interns.
Hope the FBI’s not prepared an indictment for our friend Deep State too.
10 years in Federal prison means each and every 365 day year X 10.
No gain time, no good behavior factored in, and no early release whatsoever in Federal prison for deep state graft and corruption loving Hillary voters.
> Hope the FBI’s not prepared an indictment for our friend Deep State too.
Oh no! You’ve got me!
> 10 years in Federal prison means each and every 365 day year X 10.
Let me check your math. Be right back. Yes. You are correct. It’s not wonder you see straight through ‘Gillum-nomics’, you are some kind of math genius!
> No gain time, no good behavior factored in, and no early release whatsoever in Federal prison for deep state graft and corruption loving Hillary voters.
You are officially the stupidest person on the Internet. Congratulations.
> Deep State – sounds like you work for the City Solar ‘Team’ and bought into these unfounded Gillum-nomics.
What I love about this comment is how retarded it is. Try googling FPL solar, or Duke Energy Solar, or Edison Energy Solar or JEA solar. Every power utility is putting in solar as part of their mix. You know what? Not one of them is answering ‘important’ questions about where the solar panels are made by Internet cretins. Consumers want choice, and the price point of solar is plummeting.
Wake up Tally! Pockets are being greased. COT staff and city comm. are more interested in their own benefits than the benefits of solar if any exists.
800 solar jobs coming to Jacksonville:
http://floridapolitics.com/archives/253738-volt
Solar panels (probably the inefficient kind) will be made 3 hours down the road on I-10.