By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
SOMERS POINT — The city is looking to save some money on electricity through a solar project at no cost to the taxpayers.
City Council passed a resolution Thursday, Jan. 14, authorizing the city administrator to seek competitive bids for a solar electric canopy system financed through a power purchase agreement.
City Council President Janice Johnston said the scope of the project and potential cost savings are unknown at this time.
She said the solar farm would be located at the end of Defeo Lane where the city parks some of its municipal vehicles, just across the street from the municipal tennis courts.
“It will produce some revenue and be very functional and we wouldn’t have to give anything up. We could still park the vehicles beneath it, so it will work out really well for that spot,” Johnston said.
City Administrator Jason Frost said the solar canopy would be undertaken through a power purchase agreement in which the contractor would build it, maintain it and insure it.
“A contractor, at no cost to taxpayers, builds these solar canopies, builds the infrastructure to collect energy from solar panels and it helps us as a community offset the cost of electricity. They construct it, they insure it, do any of the maintenance or fix any issues with it,” Frost said, adding that the vendor must show the city its cost savings in real time.
Councilman Sean McGuigan, who proposed the project, said the city has “kicked around solar ideas to work on for quite a while” and he saw a project at Seaview Harbor Marina “that really piqued my interest.”
He said he talked to representatives of a couple of different solar companies and “realized there is significant savings to be had.”
“Once that opened up to me, I couldn’t let that pass. I felt obligated to the citizens to pursue that,” the Ward I representative said.
McGuigan said the city looked at two options — placing solar panels on the roof of multiple city-owned buildings or one large solar farm.
“As we looked at it, the solar farm makes the most sense because the various buildings are in different stages of life and they might need new roofing and so forth, so we thought the best way to go was with the collective farm out there.”
McGuigan said the city is lucky to have the 3- to 4-acre property where the farm will be placed at the site of a former sewer plant.
There now is a “mountain of yard waste” on the site that has accumulated over the years and will be shipped out to the county to make room for the solar farm.
“It’s all composted, so it’s environmentally-friendly,” McGuigan said, adding that the size of the canopy will be dependent on how much energy the city uses to power its buildings.
“The energy has to correspond with the amount of energy we are using now,” McGuigan said, noting the city is not allowed to “get into the energy business.”
“The power companies will only accept so much power,” he said.
McGuigan said the Somers Point Green Team is very involved in the project. The team is active in Sustainable NJ, which rates municipalities based on their level of sustainability.
“We’ve gotten a lot of support and input from them, particularly their chairwoman, Lisa Bender,” McGuigan said. “There’s a lot of momentum behind this project and it’s a good thing for all of the citizens and for the environment.”
McGuigan said the city has achieved Sustainable NJ’s bronze level and hopes to get to silver or gold.
“Obviously a solar project of this size is going to carry a lot of weight with Sustainable NJ,” he said, noting it is a no-loss situation.
McGuigan said if all goes as planned, the city would save more than $100,000 in energy costs annually.
“It’s definitely something we need to pursue,” he said. “I look forward to all of City Council supporting it.”
Frost said the project would take about six months to complete, including engineering work, advertising for bids, accepting a proposal, agreeing to a contract and finally construction.
“It’s going to take a little while but I’m hoping to have it done in the next six months,” Frost said.
