WESTERLY — The city of Westerly’s previous landfill could possibly be used once more, as native officers eye it for the positioning of a photo voltaic panel challenge.
Planning has been occurring for over a yr. The city acquired proposal bids from eight solar energy suppliers in June, and interviewed two of them.
As a consequence, a land lease settlement was made between town and Kearsarge Energy for a photo voltaic photovoltaic land improvement challenge, and it’s now earlier than the City Council.
The website being thought-about off Route 91 is a grassy mound situated behind the switch station constructing.
According to the proposal, a 30-year lease of the positioning to Kearsarge would web the city about $7.1 million. Such a lease prices the city nothing, Town Manager Shawn Lacey mentioned.
“All we do is hire the place the place the panels will sit,†he mentioned. “We will return the $7 million again to the taxpayers.â€
At the tip of the lease time period, the municipality can select to resume the lease and obtain new panels, or have them faraway from the positioning, freed from cost to the municipality. The land is empty and there’s no must enter the landfill cap, Lacey mentioned. The proposal requires Kearsarge to put in about 6,700 photo voltaic modules on a part of the 70-acre landfill website.
There is a few flexibility in how lengthy the lease time period is, from 20, 25 or 30 years, Lacey mentioned, with 30 years producing essentially the most income for town. The present lease in town’s White Rock Road photo voltaic panel website is 25 years, he mentioned.
The City Council didn’t act on the draft lease, however will at its subsequent assembly on July 1.
“There is not any rush for this,†City Council President William Aiello mentioned June 17. “There is loads right here, so let’s speak about it.â€
Some council members wish to see if income from a lease might assist cut back or get rid of the $50 annual switch station allow payment charged to residents on their tax payments. . The council carried out the evaluation in 2022.
“I like the concept of offsetting the $50 switch station payment,†Aiello mentioned. “I am not towards seeing one thing like that.â€
According to its proposal, Boston-based Kearsarge was based in 2009 and owns and operates 225 MW of photo voltaic photovoltaic and battery power storage methods in New England and New York. The first challenge in Rhode Island is a 9.3 MW collaboration between the University of Rhode Island, South Kingstown and Narragansett at a number of Superfund websites in South Kingstown.
It owns and operates 14 landfill or brownfields initiatives in New England totaling greater than 69 MW.
It additionally has expertise working with Westerly as a part of the 6 MW challenge at 67 Quarry Road, which has been working since 2020.
“Kearsarge doesn’t ‘flip’ or promote initiatives after improvement,†firm supervisor Andrew Bernstein mentioned in 2023. “This ensures that town and Kearsarge are aligned and {that a} bag -an asset associate can’t be the requesting proprietor. modifications in relations and agreements.â€
More than a decade in the past, the city mentioned plans to put in a photo voltaic array on the former landfill.
Touted in 2010 because the state’s largest proposed photo voltaic farm, the ground-based photovoltaic array —a $10.5 million challenge — on 12.4 acres of the city’s previous landfill will energy municipal and faculty buildings. .
But these plans have been halted when it was discovered that the lined landfill was not robust sufficient to deal with the variety of panels wanted to construct the challenge. The landfill website can be reportedly exhibiting issues connecting to {the electrical} grid.
In March 2019, the City Council voted to undertake town’s first solar energy ordinance. The ordinance regulates residential methods and bigger photo voltaic farms meant to supply electrical energy for private and non-private utility suppliers, industries and companies.