17 cities to add solar panels to govt. buildings; savings to follow

Solar panels will soon be coming to a government-owned building near you.

Seventeen Westchester municipalities, from Yonkers all the way up to Lewisboro, have signed on to Sustainable Westchester's Municipal Solar Buyers Group. The group, which put out a request for proposals last week, is looking to find a company to partner with to install solar panels and lower energy costs for villages, towns and cities.

"The opportunity here is to create as much value as we can for local taxpayers to lower future operating costs," said Leo Wiegman, mayor of Croton-on-Hudson and Sustainable Westchester's executive director. "This is one way to do it, by using the roofs to do more than just keep the rain out."

Municipalities will finance the infrastructure through a purchasing power agreement with the to-be-determined company, where they will pay for the solar panels and other equipment by purchasing the energy generated.

Before issuing the request for proposals, the 17 municipalities identified 75 sites where panels could be built. Potential sites include the Sprout Brook ash pit in Cortlandt, the train station parking lot in Dobbs Ferry — where a solar canopy would be built — and the Hommocks Park Ice Rink in Larchmont.

"What's that land doing now? It's been capped and that's pretty much it," said Wiegman about the ash pit, a one-time dumping site for incinerated garbage. "It could be producing electricity for the town."

Sustainable Westchester is also signing municipalities up for its community choice aggregation pilot program, where a cohort of villages, towns and cities will solicit bids to deliver electricity and natural gas to residents. It has been working on the solar panel project for nearly two years, back to when the organization was known as the Northern Westchester Energy Action Consortium.

Since then, that organization and the Southern Westchester Energy Action Consortium have merged to create Sustainable Westchester which represents 41 municipalities. The organization also sponsors a solar energy installation drive known as Solarize Westchester.

Wiegman said Sustainable Westchester expects to have bids in by June 17. After selecting a company, they will identify sites that would work. He said he expects panels to be installed at some of the smaller sites by the winter and go live by next spring. Some of the larger sites might take longer.

Members of Sustainable Westchester that are not participating in this round of bidding could join later, Wiegman said. They would have to work with the company and Sustainable Westchester to determine sites.

The savings, if all goes as planned, could be substantial. Wiegman points to Croton-on-Hudson — which is participating — as an example.

"(In) My own municipality, the village of Croton … the electric bill for our facility is in the order of $400,000," he said. "If we can cut that by 20 percent or 10 percent, that's real money."

In addition to those mentioned, the other communities participating are Eastchester, Hastings-on-Hudson, Mamaroneck, Mount Kisco, New Rochelle, North Salem, Rye Brook, Somers, Tarrytown, Tuckahoe and White Plains.

Twitter: @coynereports