Framingham Mayor Delays on the Farley Solar Roof

At the City Council meeting on May 7, 2024, Energize Framingham delivered a powerful set of arguments for pushing ahead immediately with the Farley solar roof project, and accelerating planning for the many other solar roofs and solar canopies which could be installed at all the schools and other municipal buildings.

The presentation video is here:

One of the compelling moments was when Aimee Powelka explained that even without federal and state incentives, the Farley solar roof would bring in a net profit of $90,000/year. She then noted that the federal incentive was an immediate $405,000 payment of project costs for the $1.75 million project, and that the state incentives totaled $654,000 during the 20 year life of the project.

That clip from the above video is here:

All of this was based on city data, which the Mayor affirmed was correct.

If you add in the federal $405,000 to lower projects costs, the annual profit on the Farley solar roof project jumps to around $105,000. Adding in the $33,000/year of state SMART program incentives boosts that to just shy of $140,000/year in profit for the next 20 years.

This is big money, and all of this is totally based on city data and now has the backing of the Mayor, who until recently was unaware of the financial benefits of solar promoted by the Inflation Reduction Act, passed on August 12, 2022, nor of the very significant state SMART program incentives.

Government enlightenment has arrived on solar installations, with it being crystal clear that each school roof solar installation can return to the city an annual profit in the vicinity of $140,000.

Farley would be the first but we have new roofs coming onto two other schools in the FY25 capital budget: Potter Road and Brophy.

Three school solar roofs would mean more than $400,000/year to boost the city’s financial position.

Anyone would then expect Framingham to be going full steam ahead on all these 3 solar roofs.

But no.

The Mayor is convinced of the benefit of solar roofs, but only committed to the $150,000 design phase money for Farley.

It really is unfathomable.

Defer, defer, defer.

None of this makes sense.

There was a real opportunity for the Mayor to hit one out of the park on this, but he bunted.

The Mayor passed up a win-win-win opportunity:

• A big financial win.
• A big win for decarbonizing Framingham’s electricity supply.
• A big win in getting the approval of the 450 residents who signed the petition, asking for a Farley solar roof project to be approved.

In an obvious situation where good leadership could have greatly advanced the city’s efforts to improve its balance sheet and jump start its flagging climate change efforts, the community was thrown a crumb.

It is very hard to see how the Mayor can run for a second term with stunning failures like this one.