A month-old Solar Committee is working to figure out whether Town Meeting’s authorization of a long-term lease to build a solar plant will come to fruition.
In April, Concord’s annual Town Meeting authorized Town Manager Chris Whelan to enter a long-term lease at the site of the Wastewater Treatment Plant on Bedford Street or the Ammendolia Land on Old Bedford Road, both of which meet the requirements of being at least 5-acre parcels of town-owned, building-free land.
The Solar Committee is currently performing site assessments, which involves delineating sites on each parcel where a solar plant could be built and issuing requests for proposals (RFPs) to determine the price per kilowatt hour at which the Concord Municipal Light Plant would purchase energy produced by the plant.
The committee expects to use that information to make its recommendation to the Board of Selectmen, who would then hold a public site hearing sometime in late September or early October, said Light Plant Director David Wood, who chairs the Solar Committee.
“We can do a site assessment, but to make a recommendation to selectmen we need to have the prices as well,” Wood said.
It wouldn’t make sense to hold the hearing without having prices in hand, Wood said, because if the prices come back “outrageously high,” the committee would not recommend building a plant on either site.
An acceptable price will be determined by Wood, Whelan and the Light Board, according to Wood, who noted the town pays 9 cents per kilowatt-hour from Spruce Mountain, a hydro plant in Maine.
The two parcels currently on the table — the Ammendolia land and the Wastewater Treatment Plant —were approved at Town Meeting after other potential locations were disqualified from consideration.
In its handful of meetings since June, the Solar Committee has discussed looking at other possible sites that are more than 5 acres without buildings, but very few, aside from the landfill, fit the bill, Wood said.
“It’s not off the table by any means, but we feel with this go round there could be some opposition,” Wood said of the landfill.
But the landfill won’t be included with the RFPs because Whelan does not have authorization to sign a long-term lease on that property and the existing tax credits available for solar would be gone by next April, when another Town Meeting could authorize a long-term lease on the landfill.
Wood said the Solar Committee is looking at a minimum of a one-megawatt plant and would cap it at two megawatts. A megawatt would require seven or eight acres of land, he said.
“There are constraints on each parcel that limit us,” Wood said, listing future wastewater treatment needs, wetlands and community gardens at the Ammendolia land as examples.
Despite the constraints, Wood believes now is the time for the town to seriously adding in-town solar energy to its portfolio.
In discussions prior to Town Meeting, officials articulated plans to potentially acquire the solar plant from the vendor at some point during the life of the lease. Wood said Concord is not capable of supporting a wind farm, but the Light Plant is looking at hydropower form Acton, which is not online yet.
“We think it’s important to have an in-town renewable to take some of the peak off the grid and help lower our carbon footprint and one or two megawatts would make a difference,” Wood said, adding that he’s already fielded inquiries about the solar plant form six or seven companies with recognizable names.
“People are interested,” he said. “It seems to be a big thing happening. They’re doing it in other towns, and the incentives are what’s driving it.”
The Solar Committee next meets on July 22, and Wood said they’re trying to have footprints completed by then. They’re shooting to put out the RFPs in early August, in order to meet their goal of a recommendation and site hearing in the late September or early October timeframe.
