FreeState has taken advantage of unique opportunities to benefit our entire membership. In 2021 we joined the Kansas Sun Power Program with 11 fellow Kansas cooperatives to add solar power to our energy portfolio. We worked with Today’s Power, Inc., and our power supplier, Kansas Electric Power Cooperative (KEPCo), to place solar arrays in our east district and we are in the development phases of working with Evergy to add solar power to our west district.
These projects give FreeState the ability to take on a leadership role in renewable energy and set an example for working together to benefit the entire membership. FreeState leads the state in renewable energy in member generation and cooperative solar projects.
Solar projects provide FreeState with a clean energy source to purchase directly from our solar partners through a power purchase agreement (PPA). The PPA allows us to supplement wholesale power purchased from our suppliers at a competitive rate. We’ll then pass those savings directly to our members.
All our members can benefit from FreeState’s solar production, not just the members who choose to invest in their own solar. By being a member of FreeState, you are powered by a percentage of solar energy that is not only clean but economical. As a distribution cooperative, FreeState purchases all the power used by our members, and now we can add solar into our energy purchases — and that means everyone benefits!
FreeState’s solar farms help the cooperative control or manage peak demand that we set on the hottest summer days — when solar production is high. We can purchase low-cost clean energy and reduce our needs. And we cannot forget about reliability and how it ties into these solar farms. When these farms are built, additional infrastructure is upgraded and constructed to account for the generation of power — and that helps with the reliability of the substations these farms are tied to.
When the cooperative purchases the energy from the solar farms, we truly harvest local energy that is clean, green, and economical, which we know is vital to our members.