GOING GREEN
Troy begins work on longawaited solar energy project
TROY, N.Y. >> City government should be generating a significant portion of its electricity through solar power by the beginning of summer as the result of a longawaited project finally getting underway this week.
A crew from Monolith Solar of Rensselaer began installing solar panels on the roof of the Knickerbocker Ice Arena as the first step in a plan that will see similar panels used to generate power throughout the city and beyond. When completed, city and Monolith officials say the panels will generate about 2.1 megawatts of electricity, which would cover about 40 percent of the electricity currently used to power city facilities.
Under the remote net metering project, electricity generated by panels at the arena, as well as other facilities including Frear Park, the city Department of Public Works facility, the former city landfill and even Crosstown Plaza in Schenectady, is collected by Monolith and sold back to the city at a discounted rate. The company is footing the estimated $4 million bill for installing panels at all of the sites, with the city expected to save $100,000 on its electricity costs in the first year of the project and an average of $200,000 a year over the next 20 years, according to Mayor Patrick Madden.
“It’s important for [the city] to ... use more sustainable energy, to reduce our carbon footprint,” the mayor said as he conferred Tuesday afternoon with Monolith co-founders Mark Fobare and Steven Erby. A crew worked on placing the estimated 1,300 panels that will sit atop the facility in Knickerbocker Park.
“The savings are important, too.”
Monolith officials expect to have the panels atop the arena in place by the end of the month and connected to the electrical grid by mid-April, with the entire project completed by the end of May. Because of the use of remote net metering, which allows customers who generate their own electricity to essentially sell back unused power, the city was even able to include a site in Schenectady owned by Magellan Realty Partners, which also owns Hudson River Commons on Hoosick Street.
Magellan offered Crosstown Plaza as a site after its Troy property was ruled out.
The panels to be placed at the closed landfill off Sherman Avenue will produce the most power of the sites, about 600 kilowatts, and was the first site considered when discussions began in 2012.
The landfill site is also special to Fobare and Erby because it was the primary focus of Bill Chamberlain, the city’s longtime director of operations until he was stabbed to death near his Wynantskill home in December 2015.
Fobare said they hope to in some way dedicate that site to Chamberlain to honor his commitment to the project.
“We want to make that one a tribute to Bill,” Fobare said Tuesday.
“He, for whatever reason, wanted us to build that one.”
When completed, the project will “represent a significant amount of our portfolio,” Fobare explained, with company projects across the state generating about 30 million megawatts.
He said Monolith has essentially doubled in size each year since he and Erby founded the company in 2008.