Public Hears RiverWinds Solar Proposal

After a series of closed-session meetings at West Deptford township committee meetings over the past few months, the public got their first full look Wednesday at a proposed solar canopy system and power purchase agreement that could go into place at the parking lots around .

And as with the township committee, residents had plenty of questions, on everything from aesthetics to health concerns to maintenance to what kind of risk the township would be taking with the project.

Joe Joyce, senior vice president for sales and marketing with Ray Angelini, Inc. (RAI), the proposed developer for the solar project, gave an extensive presentation on the plan, with an emphasis on the costs and savings potential for West Deptford.

In short, Joyce put it, the power purchase agreement would have RAI build the solar canopy system and maintain it over the 15-year life of the deal, all at no cost to the township, with West Deptford then buying back all the power produced by the 2-megawatt system.

The township would actually be buying from a third party, Beltsville, MD-based SunEdison, which would own the solar system.

The savings to West Deptford, Joyce said, would come from the contract electricity rates, which would be, on average, about 40 percent lower than what the township would otherwise pay to PSE&G for the 2.5-million kilowatt-hours annually the solar system would produce.

“The net of this financial discussion is, it costs you nothing, you save a whole boatload of money over 15 years,” Joyce said.

A spreadsheet put together by RAI shows a savings of $3,226,200 over what the township would pay PSE&G over a similar term, figuring on a four-percent annual increase in PSE&G’s electric rates over the life of the agreement.

Depending on what happens with electricity costs over the life of the deal, though, that savings could be higher or lower; data from the federal Energy Information Association’s (EIA) 2010 energy outlook show the potential for electricity prices to be flat through 2035, while the power purchase agreement slowly ratchets up the rates over the 15-year span of the contract.

However, the agreement would finish at a rate in Year 15 that’s lower than the current cost through PSE&G, and EIA’s historical data showed about a 3.875-percent annual increase in electricity prices from 2001 through 2009, which isn’t far off from what RAI projected in their calculations.

Savings aside, several residents raised concerns about the aesthetics of the project.

Dave Sileo said the idea looked interesting from the overhead view.

“Once I saw the ground view, I was a little disappointed,” he said, referring to the wing construction RAI showed in the presentation.

Likewise, Don Suchora said he was concerned it would end up looking like a solar canopy system at Broadway Electric in Woodbury, which he said already has runnels of rust down a white-painted exterior.

“I like RiverWinds, and I don’t want to see it trashed up,” he said.

Joyce said the aluminum and stainless-steel construction means there’s nothing to worry about in terms of degradation, and the maintenance deal in place between RAI and SunEdison as part of the contract provides for constant checks on the health of the project.

“It’s like your car, they’ll last if you maintain them,” he said.

Suchora, an engineer, also raised a concern about the land where the project would sit, which is mostly dredge spoils. He questioned whether RAI would need to construct additional pilings, as RiverWinds Restaurant did.

While a final design hasn’t been set, Joyce said they’ve already done some engineering to gauge how they would need to build the system. Either way, he said, the look of the project will be similar to other solar carport designs, with angled panels atop a truss that goes from about 13 feet, six inches high on the low side to 15 or 16 feet on the high side.

“These are not right above the roof of your car,” Joyce said.

Other residents were less concerned about the look than they were the practical side, with several raising the point of insurance, and where liability would fall, should the panels be vandalized or one of the structures collapse.

Joyce said SunEdison would hold a policy on the installation, and solicitor Michael Angelini said the township would seek a clause in the contract to hold West Deptford harmless for any incidents.

“I’m sure that’s one of the things we’d need to review,” he said.

Committeeman-elect Ray Chintall raised a concern about the exposure to risk, given the fall in the Solar Energy Renewable Certificate (SREC) market over the past year. SRECs are auctioned off to generate part of the profit for solar systems, but as Mayor Len Daws pointed out, the township’s immune from those fluctuations, thanks to the contracted energy prices–SunEdison would assume that risk.

And, as Joyce said, SREC prices are less of a concern for large solar developers, who can set long-term contracts for thousands of them at once.

Though SREC prices in New Jersey have fallen from more than $600 each last year down to about $225 currently, that price is still higher than in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Despite the second presentation this month and the various questions from the public, the township committee took no action on the proposal, which would need to pass muster before both the township committee and planning board before it could be built. RAI representatives said construction, which would be done in waves across the lots, would be about a six- to eight-month process.

Daws said it’s unlikely the township committee would take a final vote on the proposal at the end-of-year closeout meeting on Dec. 29, given they still need to review the finalized design and go over a real contract.

“A lot of details still need to be worked out,” he said.