2013-03-26_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

kOSEWELE REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Department Approval Attachment A Date: 3/25/2013 Item No.: City Manager Approval Item Description: Discuss Solar PV Installations on City Hall and Maintenance Buildings 1 BACKGROUND 2 Recently the City Manager and staff met with Powerfully Green, a solar energy installation 3 company and their financial partner, Newport Partners LLC. We discussed opportunities for PV 4 (photovoltaic) solar energy installation on city facilities. This company is working with the City 5 of Champlin and the City of Lindstrom on installations on their facilities. They use a Minnesota o made solar panel in their installations. Staff is aware of two Minnesota manufactures of solar 7 panels. This is important from a financing perspective due to Minnesota made tax credit a opportunities. 9 Solar installations are currently feasible due to tax credit opportunities and Xcel Energy rebate 10 programs. City staff provided energy use information from city hall and the maintenance 11 building on the city campus to Powerfully Green and Newport Partners to determine the 12 feasibility of installations on these facilities. Their findings suggest a 40kw installation on each 13 of the facilities is feasible. This size system would require 25,000 square feet of solar panels on 14 each installation. There is adequate area on city hall/police and on the maintenance facilities for 15 these installations. The systems are connected to the building electrical panel and reduce the 10 amount of electric energy purchased from Xcel. They also feed power back onto Xcel's grid if n there is not enough demand from the facility to use the solar generated power. 40kw is the 10 maximum installation under the rebate program through Xcel Energy per metered facility. In 19 order to take advantage of the tax credits available, the city would enter into a guaranteed energy 20 savings contract with the owner of the installation. The installation would be turned over to the 21 city after a defined number of years. The current proposal is to turn the installation over to the 22 city after 6 years. These types of projected are allowed under State Statute 471.345 Subdivision 23 13 without following usual competitive bidding requirements. There are other requirements in 24 the statute that must be complied with for these projects. 25 Staff has contacted the other Minnesota manufacturer of solar panels for comparison of available 20 options for their product. The City of Maplewood completed two installations of TenK Solar 27 panels at their city }tall and community center site last fall. They will be reviewing performance 20 information from their installations in the near future and offered to share it with Roseville staff. 29 Representatives from Powerfully Green and Newport Partners will be at the meeting for a short 30 presentation and the subsequent staff discussion with the Council. 31 POLICY OBJECTIVE 32 The City Council goals and strategic directives include sustainability as a priority. Renewable 33 power fits these goals and is also supported in the IR 2025 document. Page 1 oft