The latest in the category of interesting and innovative subscriptions is a 25-year subscription to solar gardens the Sauk City (Minnesota) Council considered at last night’s meeting. The subscription stems from Minnesota legislation passed in 2013 that allows a Minneapolis-based utility, Xcel Energy, to create a program for community solar gardens.

Called the Xcel Energy Solar Rewards Program, a community solar garden is a centralized solar project connected to an energy grid with multiple subscribers. Each subscriber receives a credit on their Xcel energy electric bill based on the production of the solar facility and their subscription share of that facility. The gardens Sauk Rapids is considering subscribing to are built and operated by Geronimo Energy.

According to the city council agenda packet, Sauk Rapids would save approximately $20,000 per year, or close to $475,000 over a 25-year period. To maximize its investment, the city could subscribe to between six and eight gardens. However, the gardens must be located within Benton County, not within Sauk Rapids itself. There is a minimum requirement of five subscribers per solar garden.

“Essentially how this program works is that a solar company such as Geronimo builds out a solar site and then puts that electricity on Xcel’s grid. In return, Xcel reduces our bill. Of that savings, we keep 1.0 cent per kilowatt hour. The rest of the savings is then sent to Geronimo by the City,” said Todd Schultz of the Community Development Department in his report to the city council.

“Legal has reviewed the contracts and has no concerns. In the event that the gardens that we subscribe to fail to provide the electric that they are required to provide, then we wouldn’t, in turn, have to pay Geronimo their cut of the savings,” Schultz added.

According to Geronimo Energy, there are multiple benefits for subscribers, including:

• No upfront investment or future capital requirements
• Annual energy savings through a simple, straight-forward pricing structure
• Subscriptions are transferrable
• Support renewal energy
• No maintenance or overhead costs

It is not clear if there is a cost to the subscription or if it just requires meeting enrollment conditions and registering for the program.

Insider Take:

As the subscription model continues to evolve, we’ve seen some very interesting applications including everything from tampon subscription boxes and EMT service subscriptions to dive bar t-shirt subscriptions and now solar garden subscriptions. What will they think of next?

This example just speaks to the innovation made possible via the subscription model. Subscription companies, no matter what their origin or focus, can build long-term, sustainable businesses by signing up regular customers and receiving recurring revenue.

In the meantime, their customers get the value of a product or service they have grown to love without having to think about paying a monthly bill. Everybody wins. We expect to see more of this type of innovation in the future, as businesses and municipalities find value in the low-risk commitment subscription models offer.