LIVERMORE — Selectpersons agreed Tuesday, Aug. 2, to have legal counsel review a contract with ReVision Energy Inc. for a solar agreement that would help reduce the town’s electrical costs.
At a previous meeting ReVision representative Tina Meserve shared information about a photovoltaic solar powered facility based in Waldoboro. The towns of Jay, Livermore Falls and Wilton and the Livermore Falls Water District had a joint legal review done of the proposed contract.
Selectperson Brett Deyling had enquired then about putting a solar array at the town’s landfill.
“Since I was here the last time, I went back and looked at the option for onsite solar that you talked about on your landfill and also spoke with our leadership team about having you join into the offsite solar array that Livermore Falls, Jay, and Wilton and the water district are all joining in on,” Meserve said. “On the onsite array, when we did the cost analysis it turned out it is not a very good financial project for the town.”
The cost for a project that size on a landfill – which costs more because of the way the process works –would be about $200,000, Meserve stated. The return on investment is 16 years and ReVision typically shies away from recommendations with that long of a return on investment, she noted.
Recent federal legislation could give rebates to municipalities equal to the 30% tax incentive for for-profit corporations, but full details aren’t known, Meserve said.
“If you have your heart set on doing something with the landfill being an array you could hold off for a while, see if that legislation goes through. If it does that is going to make municipal projects much more desirable,” she noted.
Finding a tax investor for a project that small, with that long a return on investment would be hard, she added.
Meserve said joining an offsite array which would save about $12,000 a year on electricity costs usually requires about $40,000 to enter. “Because we have the other towns all in agreement, the Town Managers have had their legal counsel review the contract, [Select] Boards to have a final decision by the middle of August, our legal team said they would be willing to add you into the exact same savings which is 15.5%,” she noted. The same legal process would need to be followed, she added.
On a $12,000 project about 85% of the load would be offset, Meserve noted. For Livermore $10,200 could be offset, she stated.
“At a 15.5% savings you would be paying about 11 cents for that on energy-billing credit,” Meserve said.
Livermore would save just under $1,600 a year and $37,000 over the length of the contract, she noted.
When asked, Meserve noted the different towns have different loads, all get the 15.5% savings because they went in together on a request for proposal, she said.
The Wilton Select Board considered the proposal in June and voted unanimously for the Board to sign the contract. The Jay Select Board voted Monday, Aug. 8, to allow the town manager to sign a net-energy-billing credit purchase and sale agreement with ReVision Energy Inc.
“I am fine with seeing a contract,” Deyling said. “We should get it vetted, make sure our legal is comfortable with everything, finalize it at our next meeting.”
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