Punxsy borough keeps moving forward on solar panels
PUNXSUTAWNEY — Punxsutawney Borough Council voted to approve a memo of understanding with Energy Independent Solutions (EIS Solar) at a special meeting Monday.
Toby Santik, borough manager, said they’ve chosen EIS Solar, through the process of competitive bid, having occurred during the period of December 2021 through March 2022, to be its prime solar developer for an energy property project to be erected in the borough for the purpose of providing electrical power for the borough’s electrical needs, plus additional electrical loads to be developed and identified over time.
Hal Saville, commercial projects consultant for EIS Solar, outlined the project.
“We’ve been able to be cost effective to provide the best quality,” he said. “We always strive to be the system you can get that follows all the way through.”
Saville said that they have a lot of experience doing these projects on a larger scale.
“A lot of these projects have green building standards, so we’re very familiar with that documentation,” he said. The timeline: • Securing financing through PPA provider as well as other grants and loans may take up to six to 12 months to complete. Time is of the essence to get started.
• Having a fleshed-out project design is important to be able to show around to foundations and lenders. Development tasks:
• Site layout based on topological evaluation to determine buildable array field areas.
• Pull testing to determine soil quality and characteristics which impact foundation types and where they should build.
• Obtain stamped structural steel drawings.
• Electrical service design and engineering review, needed to submit the interconnection design application to utility.
• Borough electrical service inventory, to determine eligible meters to be offset with virtual meter aggregation.
• Project specifics: 2,654 each 550 watt Bi-facial PV Modules equaling 1.46 MW of capacity.
• Power generation of 1,774,000 kilowatt hours enough to offset the borough’s current annual kWh consumption.
• The borough retains possession of SREC revenue starting in year one.
• This translates into a payback of 8.13 years, not considering currently spiking electric rates.
Saville said that EIS Solar may also consult with various authorities having jurisdiction on the
borough’s behalf, especially the electrical utility and regulatory agencies, to identify opportunities and challenges associated with the project.
The borough authorized EIS Solar to proceed with project development tasks including pull testing, structural and electrical and engineering review, stamping of structural drawings and utility outreach on behalf of the borough to initiate the interconnection designing review of local grid architecture.
All of these shall become billable services to the borough not to exceed $20,000 and subject to prior approval by borough manager.
The solar panels are currently planned to be located above the Punxsutawney borough police firing range.