Morrison’s Custom Feed and Feed Bag Store go local with solar

White River Junction, Vermont Jan 19, 2022

Norwich Solar Marketing Coordinator - Ajah Tier - tier@norwichsolar.com

Morrison’s Custom Feeds is a leading feed processor and provider in New England with a processing mill and feed distribution facility in Barnet, VT. The Morrisons are a fifth generation agricultural family that has been operating the mill for the last 30 years. The Morrison family also owns and operates Morrison’s Feed Bag retail store in St Johnsbury, VT.

Since Morrison’s Custom Feeds is a major player in the local organic feed industry, they were looking for ways to bring more local, clean electricity onto the grid and reduce their operating costs to keep their products affordable for years to come.

The Morrisons purchased a 4 acre field 1 mile from their Barnet mill that had not been viable for other uses, however, discussions with Norwich Solar identified this as a potential site for a 500 kW AC ground mounted solar array-- large enough to produce about the same amount of electricity as consumed at the Barnet mill & office.

The Morrisons worked with Norwich Solar to design, permit, engineer, and construct their first solar project in 2020. “This was my second opportunity to work with the Morrisons, a great Vermont family agricultural company.” says staff engineer Nathan Billings “Their commitment to renewables and their community align perfectly with our missions of bringing local power, local products, and local jobs to Vermont.”

To help fund the projects, Morrison’s Custom Feed was able to win a REAP grant from USDA, while also taking advantage of state and federal investment tax credits. Earl Morrison, Plant Manager, monitors the solar array production from his phone and states that “the [Barnet] site has been up and running for about 12 months now and we are very happy with Norwich Solar’s help throughout the whole process.”

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Norwich Solar is a leading provider of turnkey commercial and community scale solar and energy storage solutions throughout the Northeast. With a focus on helping schools, municipalities, businesses, farms, affordable housing providers, and nonprofits, Norwich Solar’s extensive experience and community approach has helped us successfully develop, finance, and install hundreds of solar projects for our customers. Visit us at norwichsolar.com Norwich Solar is a division of Norwich Technologies and is committed to supporting all communities’ transition to a clean robust future.