The city could achieve savings of between $30,000 and $35,000 annually under the proposed power purchase agreement discussed Tuesday night before the Common Council’s regular meeting.
“Installing the solar panels will lower the costs that we have to pay out for electricity per kilowatt-hour,” Mayor Rick Davis said after the meeting. “The more energy it produces the less money we have to pay out every year in utility costs to heat and light all the city buildings.”
TM Montante Development would install panels at the Department of Public Works, the Fire Department, City Hall and the Recreation Center. Panels would also be installed at the former landfill off East Niagara Street, which has been capped and vacated.
“The landfill is just dead space,” Davis said. “Nothing is ever going to be there, so if we can utilize it for something positive like solar to help cut our costs in the city, it really is – and I hate to use a cliché – a win-win.”
Davis said solar panels were also proposed for Niawanda Park, but public reaction to that idea has been negative.
Montante, which also developed the Riverview Solar Technology Park in the Town of Tonawanda, the first solar-ready business park in the state, would pay all the upfront costs of the $1.5 million project and conduct all maintenance, said First Ward Councilman Charles M. Gilbert, who is also an electrician.
Most of the city’s costs for electricity stem from powering the sewer pumping station and streetlights, City Treasurer Joseph M. Hogenkamp said during the work session.
The length of the agreement ranges from 20 to 30 years, Gilbert said. “By doing this with a power purchase agreement, Montante fronts all that money and they get their’s over that 20-year period of the agreement,” he said.
Davis said weather conditions here make solar technology attractive. “We sit in a pretty favorable area here in the Northeast to be able to use solar and many solar companies have finally recognized that,” said Davis, who is also a meteorologist. “It’s nice to see because without that we wouldn’t have this opportunity.”
The Council could review a formal proposal from the developer as soon as its next meeting, with installation possibly completed by the end of the summer.
In other business Tuesday, Davis told the Council that the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority has proposed eliminating Route 57, the only regular bus line through the city, as a result of a $10 million budget deficit.
Davis said he particularly worried about elderly or frail city residents losing access to the NFTA’s curb-to-curb, lift-equipped van service called Paratransit Access Line. PAL’s service area extends three-quarters of a mile on either side of or from the end of Metro’s bus and rail fixed-route service. “With the elimination of the paratransit, that is going to be a huge void here in the city,” Davis said.
The Council unanimously passed a resolution asking the state to increase NFTA funding.
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