62°
NORTHBRIDGE, Mass. – The Solar Energy Advisory Committee has a better understanding today of net metering and may be closer to supporting the town’s purchase of power from a solar energy farm proposed by Con Edison.
Joseph S. Fitzpatrick, representing Con Edison, said the town would receive 100 percent of the net metering credits for the power it purchases which would be a credit on the town’s National Grid account. The numbers change with the market, but today it would be $295,000 based on 11.8 cents per kilowatt hour.
Northbridge would, in turn, pay Con Edison 90 percent of the value of the net metering credits, the town’s 10 percent share reducing its energy bill by about $30,000.
Con Edison is willing to negotiate a higher percentage for the town’s share, however, if the town can tell them soon how much energy it is willing to purchase.
Following a presentation by Fitzpatrick and David Fenton of DG Clean Power, the committee discussed how much power the town would be willing to purchase, the consensus being between 1 and 2 MW, about half the total used by the town and schools.
Con Edison is proposing a 2 MW solar energy farm on a 30-acre parcel on Milford Street. A portion of the property is in Grafton, but the bulk is in Northbridge. Con Edison would invest $5 million to install 10,000 solar panels.
Fitzpatrick said the hope is to have permitting and an interconnector agreement with National Grid in place by June with construction to begin soon after. Construction will take three to four months, he said.
Con Edison recently installed 9,720 solar panels on a 20-acre site near in Uxbridge near its Industrial Park. “It’s one of five we’ve developed,’’ he said, “all pretty similar in scale and development,’’ Fitzpatrick said, and the company recently completed permitting for a similar facility in Douglas.
Between the net metering agreement and a 20-year Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) program, the project would generate $1.5 million over the 20-year period.
Voters at the Spring Annual Town Meeting on May 1 will be asked to authorize the Board of Selectmen to enter into alternative energy or net metering agreements and to approve Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreements.
The next meeting of the Solar Energy Advisory Committee is Thursday, April 5 at 5 p.m.
Comments (5)
To the Northbridge Solar Committee:
This is your chance to lead the State, perhaps the Nation on the Energy issue.
It was in our Ct Newspapers in a study by the Electric Power Research Institute the price of Electricity is going to rise out of sight in States with laws demanding the Utilities purchase a certain percentage of their Energy from renewables such as Solar, Wind and Bio-mass.
California is the worst with 33% by 2020, followed by New York with 29% by 2015. The Institute predicts the following cost to produce a Megawatt hour of Electricity to go from about $12.00 to
$49.00, $79.00 for Natural Gas,
Onshore Wind $75.00 to $138.00. Solar from $242.00 to a whopping $455.00.
Can you imagine this? Say goodbye to the United States of America as we know it.
The big reason: Solar and Wind are not dependable, (that is they are not available upon demand) without Energy Storage. Therefore the Utilities need to duplicate the same amount of power from conventional power plants.
In Denmark they have found all their wind turbines they built only doubled the cost of producing Electricity. Denmark now leads the World on the highest cost for Electricity The Committee can verify this with a simple Google search, starting with Denmark Energy Storage.
But don't stop there, you can go to pretty much any State or Country such as Germany, Sweden, even China Energy Storage.
They will find pretty much the entire World is on the same page. Renewable Energy Sources as we know them (such as Solar and Wind) will NEVER get us there without Energy Storage.
Our Country produces enough Energy already during the off peak hours to power multiple Countries the size of Japan 24 hours a day. And all this Energy we now produce and have paid the Utilities to, produce for us is 100% just going to waste as fast as they produce it.
Why? Now it's time to learn something new. It takes about a month to shut down then ramp back up a base line power plant, so overnight when our lights are off and the load reduced means nothing. The Utilities are still burning within a bucket full the same amount of fuel all night long.
Why? It's a thermal issue. The Steel Smokestacks have expanded about 2 feet, if the Utilities tried to cool the Smokestsck Temp. down by even a few percentage points during such a short period of time (such as overnight) they would crack them. So they burn pretty much the same amount of fuel all night long, and of course roll this cost plus profit added into the overaul rate structure.
To see an example of this take a moment to go to www.caiso.com this is the power grid for most of Northern California. Look for "TODAYS OUTLOOK" There you will see a 24 hour graph you can tab on. Each square (as shown on the side bar) is 1,000 MWh.
1,000 MWh is equivalent to the power produced from a Nuclear Reactor, or two of our largest Fossil Fuel Power Plants.
All the Energy in the squares between the top curve and the lower curves is "SURPLUS" Capacity paid for and just going to waste.
Michael Grunwald of Time Magazine wrote U.S. Generators waste enough Energy to power the entire Country of Japan. I liked the article only the Energy wasted everday is a lot more than that.
I read Northbridge will get about $30K per year from the solar sales at today's prices but will they get the massive projected increase in value too?
The system may also become the town's property after 20 years, but consider that is the full life span of todays Solar panels. They talk about 25 year panels, but as far as I know they are not on the market yet. If they are, then 25 year panels should be specified in the contract.
Who will be responsible for clearing the snow off the panels and cleaning them after the pollen falls? This cost could be more than the income to the town..
The town should really be looking at off peak Energy Storage to reduce the cost of Energy and also for automatic backup power during power outages.
A lot of excellent points Mr. Electricity, plus if possible for our excellent Solar Team to maybe reach out to the State, Bolton, Lancaster, Douglas, Westborough, Hopkinton, and get some feed back on some of the potential points of concern raised in this article, and your comments? Potentially from their Solar Teams that are bringing Solar to their Community's.
'Solar Opinion Town & Schools'
(An Opinion)
It may appear the Town's of Bolton, Lancaster, Westborough, may be potentially light years in front of us. Maybe our excellent TMang may reach out to their Town Managers for some possible feed back, and potentially how these Towns may be handling maybe some of the possible similar potential content?
IRONY - The mention of "reducing its energy bill" (talking about the town) was used in the article yet an air conditioner is still in the window in the picture. Last time I checked, this was one of the biggest contributors to heat loss during the winter. Again, we waste some precious tax dollars....
With all the hot air in the Northbridge town hall maybe we should think of wind power