Oh Christmas Tree

Cornelius firm to build solar farm

The 900-kilowatt Avery Solar installation, large enough to serve about 120 homes, will occupy six acres near Newland, about 90 miles northwest of Charlotte. It's expected to be finished by mid-September. Financing came from state and federal tax credits, investors and debt.

The project is among the growing number of N.C. installations that generate energy from renewable sources such as the sun, wind and organic wastes. More than 1,800 such systems operate in North Carolina, according to a report Tuesday by the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

Aquesta Bank, a community bank that serves the Lake Norman area, provided construction and permanent debt financing for the project. O , which specializes in solar photovoltaic projects, and Aquesta say it is one of the first such solar deals financed by an N.C. bank.

Aquesta has solar energy panels on its Cornelius headquarters building, built three years ago, and the bank plans to install more at branches in Mooresville.

"It seems like the technology is tried and true now," said President Jim Engel. "It's really ramping up now."

Engel said the Avery County deal was attractive because of financially sound investors, a long-term power purchase agreement, proven technology and the bank's own familiarity with solar tax credits.

"If you get comfortable with all that, the major issue is, will the sun come up?" he joked.

Electricity produced by the solar farm will be sold to Mountain Electric Cooperative, based in Mountain City, Tenn. The cooperative sells power generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority to 33,000 customers in northeastern Tennessee and northwestern North Carolina.

Mountain Electric will also get renewable-energy certificates that represent the solar power it purchases. The certificates help utilities meet North Carolina's 2007 mandate that 0.2 percent of their energy come from the sun by 2018.

O Energies' managing director Joel Olsen said falling prices make solar power cheaper during the energy-hungry afternoons of southern summers, when air conditioners are working hardest, than so-called peaking plants fueled by natural gas.

The Avery installation will offset about 2.5 million pounds a year of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas linked to climate change.

ink'n'rubba: Oh Christmas Tree

I've managed to put a card together with one of my late night coloured images - this little cutie from LOTV is called decorating the tree and I got him in the recent sale. Now of course, this morning I had to do a little retail therapy and order some of the new little girls just out today! The current theme on the LOTV challenge blog is anything goes so I'll enter my rather plain and simple card. I've added punched gold stars, red gems and the red satin ribbon, but avoided frills and flowers as it's one for my local Christmas craft fair where I just get £1 a card. The papers are a couple pieces of Designer Digitals downloads, different collections and just sitting around in my box so in need of using up! I've stamped the LOTV circular greeting and added more gems, then matted everything with red textured card from my stash. The Copics I used to colour this little chap were my usual skintones, E000, 00, 21 and R00 for blush, plus the E 30 shades for the browns with E55 for shading. The reds are R24, 27 and 29, his fur hat trim is E0000 and E40, and the tree is G12, 14 and 17. I wanted a paler green for his cardigan so went with G40 and 82. For the gold stars I used Y15 and 35, then finally for shadow I used the warm greys.

Oh Christmas tree!, O Tannenbaum*!.

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