City looks skyward to save money

The city of Reedley is "hooking up" to the sun to save money beginning in the new year.The city will save roughly $33,000 by the end of the first year and close to $3 million over the next 20 years, city officials said.Solar panels are being installed at the Reedley Community Center, the waste water treatment plant and the old Royal Valley Building, which is located behind the Reedley Police Department and Reedley City Hall.City Hall and the police department will get solar energy from solar panels on top of the Royal Valley building, where the city parks city vehicles, stores equipment and has office space. Combined, the locations will produce 947 kilowatts of power, which is equal to 100 percent of the city's power usage at those sites.The largest number of panels is in a ground-mounted system at the waste water treatment plant. The other two sites will have fixed roof-mounted systems.Pacific Power Renewables of Auburn is installing the panels."We are very excited about lowering our operating costs while at the same time minimizing our environmental impact," said Russ Robertson, Reedley public works director. "Solar is truly a clean alternative energy source." The city is not paying for the solar panels but instead will purchase the kilowatt hours that they produce at a 10 percent discount below the city's current utility rates.Pacific Power Renewables has committed to keeping that rate fixed for the next 20 years, even though PG&E's rates are expected to increase an average of 3 percent each year.At the end of 20 years, the solar panels will be donated to the city.The solar panel installation at the community center was completed in November. Work at the other sites is scheduled to be finished at the end of the month.At the wastewater treatment plant, solar panels are being installed in an adjacent four-acre field west of the facility."This has caused additional work because they've had to bore, trench and extend conduits from the wastewater treatment plant to the field. The size of this project is also much larger than the others," Robertson said.The ground-based panels for the wastewater treatment plant will utilize solar panels that "track" the sun during the day. Overall, Robertson said he is pleased with the work thus far. "The contractors have been outstanding. Pacific Power and its primary sub-contractor, Cupertino Electric, have a lot of experience with these types of projects," he said.Pacific Power Renewables also will provide the city with access to its real-time tracking software at no cost. The software will provide trend data and show how much energy the solar systems are producing.Meanwhile, city officials said the new solar panels will take the pressure off of ratepayers to cover the cost of future PG&E rate increases and will help the city meet the state's greenhouse gas emissions goals that have been set for cities statewide.