Printed January 25. 2023 01:45PM
by Jarrad Hedes jmhedes@tnonline.com
The Lehighton Space College District will proceed to pursue a photo voltaic power challenge after its board of administrators voted Monday to pick certainly one of three proposals submitted over the previous few months.
Ecogy Vitality, Novitium Vitality and Provident Vitality/Wundur have all submitted plans to put in a roof-mount photo voltaic panel system at three Lehighton colleges, which might permit the district to avoid wasting a number of million {dollars} yearly of power prices.
“I am unsure everybody understands that this may come at zero value to the district,” director Barbara Bowes mentioned in help of the challenge. “The one doable value is that if we’ve to take away the photo voltaic system to exchange the roof or one thing like that and that is all checked earlier than hand to verify it isn’t an issue. If it turns into a difficulty, there corporations that may set up panels on the bottom.
After Monday’s vote, Board President Pleasure Beers mentioned a comparative overview of the three proposals will likely be reviewed at a workshop assembly in Lehighton in February and one of many corporations will likely be chosen for the work.
Novitium, for instance, is proposing a 25-year photo voltaic settlement that requires financial savings of $3.4 million in electrical energy prices over that interval, whereas Ecogy estimates $2.1 million in financial savings.
The storage estimate has risen in current weeks, nevertheless, because the district’s Lehighton Borough Mild and Energy mentioned it might generate extra energy from the panels every month than initially anticipated.
“Lehighton Mild and Energy does not do web metering, so we will not convey electrical energy each month if we generate greater than we want,” mentioned LASD Enterprise Supervisor Edward Rarick. “However we can use no matter we’ve completed this month, to place us at 60-70% technology protection each month versus the 40% we anticipated.”
Due to that change, Rarick mentioned, the district expects to avoid wasting greater than $5 million in power prices over 25 years.
“That is lots of taxpayer cash saved over that time frame and while you take a look at the truth that the district is not paying something, that is an enormous profit,” Bowes mentioned.
Lehighton’s present utility fee is 15.61 cents per kilowatt hour, whereas Novitium’s proposed first-year photo voltaic fee is estimated at 8.15 cents per kilowatt hour with a 2% annual improve.
“I feel it is a good transfer for us, with no upfront value, to lock it in for 25 years,” mentioned board member Nathan Foeller. “Anybody who pays an electrical invoice right this moment is aware of how unhealthy it may be when that fee jumps out at you. Having consistency may be very useful.”
Firms submitting proposals to Lehighton additionally touted the challenge’s instructional elements. Ecogy representatives advised the board that the corporate will make a presentation for college kids on the fundamentals of photo voltaic power in addition to design a knowledge analytic program for college kids taken with studying a couple of real- time monitoring system utilizing the constructing’s precise consumption and photo voltaic technology knowledge.
Kiosks at school lobbies, along with the corporate, will show dwell knowledge readings to advertise the system and timber will even be planted on campus, with the help of scholars, to represent the environmental advantages of fresh power.
Jim Thorpe and Panther Valley are two of the opposite native districts which have completed research on a photo voltaic challenge throughout the final 12 months. Tamaqua additionally added a photo voltaic challenge.
Talking earlier than the vote, district resident Dache Zelrick urged the board to assume twice earlier than signing on the dotted line.
“I do not assume photo voltaic is an effective selection,” Zelrick mentioned. “It is a short-term answer for a long-term downside and I do not see sufficient proof to help it over an extended time frame.”
