Solar Project Update

At Wednesday's regular County Board meeting, Dan Leary, of Solar City, gave us an update on the solar project, which is of particular interest to me. The idea is that Solar City will build a solar array, feed the power into the grid, get paid by NYSEG for it, and sell the power to the County at a rate that is, when all fees and extra costs are taken into account, lower than what we pay for it now.

As you may know, the project has been held up by site problems: we can't seem to find a ten-acre, relatively flat plot of land in the county that's available and is near enough to an appropriate NYSEG power line. The fact that NYSEG has apparently been very intransigent and uncooperative has made it harder. NYSEG has to provide connection details for any site we propose, and they have simply refused to get back to Solar City regarding some of them.

Time is running out; we have to have the project finalized by early next year in order to qualify for the NYSERDA incentives. So the new plan is to choose (ironically), the original site that was chosen almost a year ago: an abandoned gravel pit on County Rt. 11 in the town of Laurens. It was originally rejected because the power lines available couldn't handle the 2.7MW output; the new plan is to reduce the size of the array by about half, resulting in a 1.4MW output, which NYSEG has assured us it could handle without adding new transmission lines. Annual savings estimates have been reduced from $108,000 to a little more than half that.

Half is better than none, and I'm glad that Solar City, working with Karen Sullivan's Planning Department, put together this compromise. The Board agreed, approving the new plan on Wednesday. So we're getting there – and there's so much more to do before we're really acting on our commitment to clean, renewable energy.