Solar Power Partnership Gets El Cerrito's Signature

Piedmont is poised to join with El Cerrito, along with Albany and San Pablo, to solicit proposals for solar panel installations at 25 municipal facilities in the four cities.

Monday night, El Cerrito's City Council became the first to adopt a resolution entering into an agreement to put out the RFP.

Assistant Planner Kevin Jackson expects Piedmont's City Council to sign on at their Sept. 19 meeting. Albany and San Pablo are also expected to approve the agreement in September.

El Cerrito acted first because it would be the lead agent in the project, with more affected buildings than the other partner cities.

"The good news is now we'll be able to move forward with putting together agreements with other cities," said Maria Sanders, an environmental analyst for the city of El Cerrito said after the council's unanimous approval Monday.

Pooling resources and purchasing power gives small cities the economy of scale and ability to do what would have been difficult if not impossible alone, said Melanie Mintz, manager of El Cerrito's environmental services division.

"This kind of agreement really broadened what [a] city could do on its own," she said.

In January last year, a partnership of the four cities with the non-profit Strategic Energy Innovations won funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Showcase Communities Program to pursue climate protection and energy management activities.

The grant proposal, titled the "Small Cities Climate Action Partnership," was intended to create a model for small cities to pool staff, consultants and electricity demand for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving climate action planning, the staff report said.

According to the El Cerrito staff report, "the collaboration is to jointly issue a solicitation and to cooperate in negotiating contract and financial terms," but "El Cerrito will in no way be responsible for any aspect of any project in the other cities."

On the list for potential solar installation locations in Piedmont are City Hall, the Veterans' Hall, the Recreation Department, and the Corporation Yard.

The panels could generate 84,313 kWh annually, reducing the carbon dioxide usage of the four facilities by 24 tons, offseting 26 percent of the facilities' current electricity usage, and shrinking the Piedmont's electric bill substantially over the expected 25-year life of the system.

The largest photovoltaic array — generating 27,060 kWh — would be placed on City Hall, followed by panels generating about 23,787 kWh on the Veterans' Hall; 20,518 kWh on the Recreation Department building; and 12,948 kWh at the Corporation Yard.

With clay-roofed buildings and tree-shaded locations ruled out, the  four municipal facilities are thought to be the only city properties where solar installations are feasible in Piedmont.

Jackson speculated that decisions about solar installations in Piedmont could be made by the end of the year.

Piedmont's Climate Action Plan was adopted in March 2010. The plan identifies solar energy as, "the most promising option for future renewable energy generation" and a major component of the city's strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.