Historic site looks to future
Grant Cottage becomes first facility of its kind in state to get green power update
In an effort to drive the state toward carbon neutrality, Grant Cottage, on a Saratoga County mountaintop, has become the state’s first historic site to move completely off the grid.
At a press conference along the road to the cottage where Ulysses S. Grant, former president and Civil War general, spent his final days, state Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Erik Kulleseid showed off the newly installed solar array of 90 panels, declaring that the cottage is now part of the climate change solution.
“General Grant was fascinated by new technology, and I think today he would be thrilled to see us take this new step to move this forward,” Kulle
seid said.
The $400,000 project, paid for by the state parks’ energy and sustainability fund, also includes 48 batteries to store energy that can be tapped into on cloudy, sunless days. The solar panels were placed just down the hill from the cottage and visitor’s center, which is also just below buildings from the now-closed Mount Mcgregor Correctional Facility.
While the site is owned by the state, it is funded and run by the Friends of Grant Cottage, a nonprofit entity.
Kulleseid said the solar project is part of a statewide parks effort to draw 50 percent of energy from renewables by 2027. By the end of 2021, 15 percent of parks’ energy consumption will be solar.
The state’s Energy Research and Development Authority partnered with state parks on the project, which is the 34th solar array to be installed in a state park. Doreen Harris, president and CEO of NYSERDA, said it’s fitting to install this project at the final home of Grant as he was a leader for civil rights, and human rights and climate justice are intertwined.
“It’s important to note as we think about the framework of the climate acts that we are implementing and that we do so with environmental and social justice so all New Yorkers can benefit from this transition,” Harris said.
She also said the project demonstrates that historic homes can be “brought up to modern times with clean-energy resources.” She said the array helps to fulfill Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Climate Leadership and Community Protective Act, which sets a goal that 70 percent of the state’s energy be drawn from renewables by 2030.
“The resources achieve our climate goals and our economic development goals as well,” Harris said. “We were thrilled to support this project.”
After the speakers and the installation of the last four panels, Kulleseid went inside the visitor’s center and flipped the switch to turn on the electricity, saying, “Let there be light.”
“Parks is proud to be a leading agency to try to implement climate leadership,” Kulleseid said.
Grant Cottage sits on 43 acres on Mount Mcgregor. In the two-story home, an ailing Grant finished his memoir before succumbing to throat cancer in July 1885. The home has been preserved with all of Grant’s belongings just as they were the moment he died, including his bedside table with his medicine, a bottle of liquified cocaine, and the floral arrangements that arrived just afterwards for his August funeral.