Evanston City Council Monday is scheduled to award a contract that will place solar panels on the roof of the Robert Crown Community Center.
The agreement with Verde Solutions LLC of Chicago calls for the company to purchase and install the panels at no cost to the city under a 20-year agreement with options that could extend it for another 15 years.
A staff memo indicates the solar panels would generate about one million kWh of electricity each year. That’s about a quarter of the electricity the Crown Center used during 2022, according to the city’s request for proposals for the project.
The city will be able to purchase power generated by the solar panels for use at the center at a price that is about 25% less than what it currently pays Commonwealth Edison for electricity.
The city now pays roughly $200,000 a year for electricity at the Crown Center. The new agreement might shave perhaps $12,000 off the total annual power bill for the center.
The project also helps meet the city’s Climate Action and Resilience Plan goals and its Municipal Operations Zero Emissions Strategy
Officials estimate the city now generates only 0.12% of its total energy consumption and has set a goal of increasing that to 15%.
The proposal from Verde drew the highest rating from city staff reviewers of the three proposals received in response to the RFP.
On its website, Verde notes its completion of a somewhat similar solar project at the College of Lake County. It generates about 2.5 times as much energy as proposed for the Crown site with panels on 13 rooftops and on two acres of land on the campus.
Whenever I hear something will be provided for free I need to understand the economics from the providers side.
It sounds like a good deal. It makes sense that Verde gets free land on which to place its solar panels and passes the savings on to those who buy power from it. Still, Council should ask some questions.
1. Who will own the solar panels? (I presume Verde since they are buying and installing them)
2. How will maintenance be funded? Will there be costs to the city?
3. When the roof needs repair or replacement, how will having solar panels change the process? In particular, will Verde need to temporarily move the panels?
4. What happens if Verde goes out of business? Is the a contingency plan to maintain or remove the panels?
5. How long are the panels expected to last?
6. Should we expect the price of power from the panels to change? If so, what is involved? What would be involved if the city decided not to buy power from Verde?
7. How often will Verde or its contractors need access to the property? What the the procedures for that?
With so many federal and state government grants for renewable energy projects for municipalities, one would think that the staff would have explored this option along with a proposal from Verde. By using grants to reduce costs, the City may have found it more economically advantages to fund the project themselves (with the grants cutting about 40% of the cost). This may have saved the City money in the long run.