By turning to solar, Natick expects to save

When the new Community Senior Center and Natick High School are opened next year, the town will have the capacity to generate 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, saving $90,000 in energy costs and reducing the town’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 500 tons annually.

The town has contracted with Framingham-based green energy company Ameresco to install the solar arrays. The company will be responsible for evaluation, planning, installation, maintenance and operation of the town’s solar panels. In return, the town promises to purchase power from the panels for 20 years and signs over state and federal tax credits to the company.

The solar panels will cost taxpayers nothing, and the town will benefit from less expensive electricity than the 18 cents per kilowatt-hour it pays now, with payments closer to 15 cents per kilowatt hour.

Natick school district finance director William Hurley said Ameresco is currently installing panels on four school buildings. The panels will be able to generate approximately:

300,000 kWh/year at Wilson Middle School

200,000 kWh/year at Kennedy Middle School

100,000 kWh/year at Bennett-Hemenway Elementary

110,000 kWh/year at Memorial Elementary

Hurley said Wilson’s panels are scheduled to be completed on Nov. 4, and the other three by Dec. 2.

“It’s very important for the contractor to get these up and running by the end of the calendar year,” Hurley said. “We have no reason to believe this won’t happen; the work is progressing quite well.”

Town Administrator Martha White told Town Meeting at the opening night of the fall session on Tuesday that Wilson Middle School’s solar array would start producing electricity by the end of 2011.

The Wilson array should save the town $26,000 in electricity costs annually.

“To put this in perspective, the average two-story, three-bedroom Natick household uses about 18,000 kilowatt hours a year of electricity,” White said. “The solar system at Wilson will produce electricity equal to the amount needed to supply power to 170 Natick homes.”

White’s presentation garnered a round of applause from the town’s legislative body, the only one of the evening.

The new high school’s original design called for a small solar array, but Hurley said he’s doing a cost-benefit analysis for adding a much bigger array to the school.

“We are exploring the possibility of putting a larger solar array on the new high school,” Hurley said. “The original design including a smaller array – 50 kilowatts - but what’s being proposed is a much larger system, perhaps as much as six times that. That work is progressing, and we hope to have an answer to put in front of the School Committee and the High School Building Committee in the next couple of weeks.”

Source: By turning to solar, Natick expects to save - Natick, Massachusetts - Natick Bulletin and Tab http://www.wickedlocal.com/natick/archive/x1872801228/By-turning-to-solar-Natick-expects-to-save#ixzz1bZZWZFm0