Just as the door slams on one solar energy opportunity, another two have opened up.
A month after deciding to halt plans for a solar power installation at the Newbury Park Library because of high costs, the city of Thousand Oaks is going forward with efforts to install the energy-producing panels at the Hillcrest Center—home to the Conejo Recreation and Park District and the National Park Service—and at the city’s Municipal Service Center on Rancho Conejo Boulevard.
On Feb. 22, the City Council voted 4-0 to award a $1.6-million construction contract to S.H.E. Engineering and Construction of Reseda to install solar panels on the roof of the former city hall on Hillcrest Drive, which the city leases to CRPD and the park service. The roof is currently used for parking.
Councilmember Dennis Gillette was absent.
The proposal makes good fiscal sense, said Facilities Manager Liz Perez, because the roofs at the two Hillcrest Center buildings are currently leaking and it would cost nearly as much to repair the roofs for continued use as parking lots than it would be to install a regular roof with energy-producing solar panels.
“The costs came up to be extraordinarily high, $2.5 million-plus, to maintain it as a roof deck; that’s when we switched and thought, what if we put the solar up there,” Perez told the council.
Also at the Feb. 22 meeting, the council agreed to begin advertising for construction bids to purchase and install solar canopies at the Municipal Service Center, which houses city buses and all city employees dedicated to infastructure. The cost for that project is estimated at $943,000.
The cost for both ventures will be offset by $800,000 in federal stimulus funds—$400,000 of which was transferred over from the failed project at the Newbury Park Library—and more than $743,000 from a state energy rebate program operated by Southern California Edison. The city’s total general fund contribution for the two solar fields is estimated at $837,000, according to a staff report.
That means the city will contribute only 33 percent of the total $2.5-million price tag for the two environmentally friendly installations, said Finance Director John Adams.
“If we don’t take advantage of the solar incentives, that money just goes to another . . . agency,” Adams told the Acorn. “It’s pretty critical we try to keep the funding here in this community.”
The city expects the panels at the municipal center to save $25,000 a year in utility expenses and for the payback period—the time it takes to recoup the investment—to be 13 years, the report said.
The actual total combined cost to redo the roof and add solar panels at the two buildings on Hillcrest is estimated to be $2.8 million.
When considering only the cost of the solar panels—$1.6 million—after a $500,000 contribution of stimulus funds and $426,248 from Edison’s Solar Initiative, the payback period is approximately 11.2 years, accounting for an annual energy savings of $60,000.
During last Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Jacqui Irwin said she’s happy the city’s going forward with the two solar projects at Hillcrest and at the Municipal Services Center since efforts at the Newbury Park Library were determined cost prohibitive after the loss of grant funding. As a member of the city’s capital facilities committee, it was Irwin and Gillette who were responsible for halting the Newbury Park project.
“As the capital facilities committee we thought the payoff period (at the N.P. Library) was too long, and so this project, putting the money toward this project . . . we thought that it was a more fiscally responsible move, so I’m certainly very excited about (it) going forward,” Irwin said.
Irwin did ask Perez why the Hillcrest solar project didn’t go before the planning commission like the library solar panels did.
“The Hillcrest project, from a planning standpoint, the solar panels are down below a parapet, so they’re not seen by any public road, they’re not even seen onsite until you’re up against them, so there’s no planning reason aesthetically to take the project (before the planning commission),” Perez said.
Asked by the Acorn if the city’s share of funding from Edison’s rebate project had already been approved, Perez confirmed that the money is reserved, but the city still must meet the deadline of having solar panels operational by at least April 2012.
If completed, Hillcrest and the service center will be the second and third solar installations owned by the city, joining the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant, which had solar panels mounted on its roof in 2007.
In a Nutshell
At the Feb. 22 City Council meeting, the council moved forward on two separate solar energy projects: the first at the Hillcrest Center—home to the Conejo Recreation and Park District and the National Park Service—and the second at the Municipal Services Center on Rancho Conejo Boulevard. After stimulus funds and money from the California Solar Intiative are counted in, the cost to the city for both projects is $837,000, or 33 percent of the total actual cost, according to a staff report.
No comments:
Post a Comment