welcome to belmont journal this is a special edition and we're focusing on possible uses of the former incinerator site here in the town of belmont and today we're going to be talking about solar energy and energy storage and to talk about solar energy we have a special guest pat fantasy who's the director of asset management at cure star jenner g great to be here thanks thanks for  sixteen ok in general for the for the audience out there how does a solar farm work anyway well we basically to build solar you need a reasonably flat surface we can build on curved surfaces so typically if we're building for a landfill would probably be for the most part right on top of the landfill ok so once you've kind of design the site and decide how big it has to be and form the financial partnerships to actually put the financing together for the site you'd then contract for the construction ok the construction typically consists of putting down what's called wrecking wrecking actually supports those solar panels ok you would then place the panels and then they would wire the panels together to other pieces of equipment like transformers and some of that when that's all done you connected all up to the public utility typically ok so that the energy can pump get pumped out to the energy critically delivering electricity back to the utilities are correct ok energy performed compared to other forms of energy solar is really of a wonderful neighbor to have it's very non disruptive it's not as efficient as something like coal or gas but again it's completely renewable and most people are willing to trade off that that's like lots of the fish and sea in order to get something that's completely renewable and not disruptive and that's seemingly well that is and typically solar production is very low when the days are short so in the winter starting in november december january are protected and is really really at its lowest ebb the nd thing that tends to to depress production in the winter is the presence of snow ok so snow is wonderful in the sense that it scours the panel and really cleans them very well but we can't produce energy when when there's snow on the panels so that energy energy production over the year rises very rapidly beginning in march ok and really peaks in june july and august and all of this of course is weather dependent if you have  a run of thunderstorms for example in the middle of the summer that can make a big difference difference in how much production you get so if there was a lot of snow one winter w right after the snow event ok for the most part the snow melts off the panels pretty rapid ok depending on how much they're tilted and you know what kind of snow it is ice tends to be a little bit more difficult it's not that yeah i last sometimes a day or two but typically it's off pretty rapidly and what are the revenues that can be expect from solar farm how does the town of concord benefit the finances can be a little bit complicated ok we work with an organization in rhode island that's a control consortium between the university and the town ok and the savings can be as high as almost a one million dollars a year well again that's that's highly dependent on how big the site is and what kind of arrangements for financing the site have been negotiated but they can be quite significant for a town ok and actually cure surge has a number of these sorts of projects is that right yes we've got  upwards of thirty five dollars in another fifteen in development right now would it be just to massachusetts or beyond we have sites we actually have a couple of sites in hawaii but for the most part we're focused on the northeast government agencies or through their get very very much so what excites us the most is the ability to take an underutilized resource like a landfill for example and be able to save the town not only will you get  energy savings from the net metering credits that the site will generate but you'll also get least revenue there's a possibility of getting tax revenue so you can take a piece of of property that's basically producing nothing and turn it into an asset for a municipality which is hugely exciting and i was curious sort of a little bit off script here but how is it to make that argument to say to use underutilized piece of land for renewable energy there's a long term benefit compared to the town that might be could she wrote we saw a property to a developer or something you know that the profit so how do you how do you make that  argument how easy it is to make that argue i think it's really a case by case scenario in some situations i'm not sure it's always possible to sell the property ok with developer because some of these landfills really must kind of stay the way limited i know there are some situations where a town has to say how much you know what's the short term benefit what's a long term benefit they have to make those decisions both from a policy perspective for from a political perspective to as of course how that gets portrayed but what do you do what can you do to manage or to prevent any compromise of the capping of landfill site i think i think we may have a slide that shows a kind of a cross  section what the way landfill caps typically work there are several layers the top layer is usually eight hundred to two feet of soil and underneath that is a membrane so when we build these sites we build them in a very specific way rather than putting post down for those solar panels for that rocking that we talked about before that would be drilled into the ground what we use are big concrete ballasts ok that  actually support both the fencing around the site and the solar panels them saw so the combined weights were also exactly and then we we have kind of a rigorous inspection process for that when you're dealing with landfills we want to make sure that it's not an even settlement we want to make sure that the landfill itself is not disrupted so you have to be very careful when working with landfills in concord the not necessarily next to or close to residential a ribs or right that's correct it's going to be closer to a residential neighborhood if it was built in belmont any issues around that the people should be concerned about or just be aware of with put it that way  think solar it's a great neighbor i think as i said to you earlier it's like having a cemetery in your backyard without the mourners are there it's very very very quiet they make  they remain habitat for animals and that's something we're very concerned about most of the time we have a six inch gap at the bottom of the fence so that animals that are there before can continue to use the land and the proposed site in belmont again is also close to conservation land any issues around that that any adverse effect or we worked really closely with the conservation commissions typically and they may have special requirements so for example sometimes will be asked to use a particular seed mix because the conservation commission wants the area plant planted with the particular type of plant ok we are always watching for the development of in species and that sort of thing because that has to be controlled early on so that things they don't get out of control and then we again keep those communications lines open with the conservation commission to make sure we understand what they are seeing and what we need to do to keep the site in good shape in this case do you are you aware of and i realize we're not very early in the looking at this process but do you have to conditions from conservation committees when commissions they'll tell us exactly what they want us to do ok the kind of great thing about solar to me is if there were great leaps in say handling a landfill  well you're not committed forever to this solar facility and we'll give you back the land in great condition so it's it's not an option that really closes off other options down the line take every guy actually yeah you know most of the time we panels right it's pretty simple and i know that a lot of you know they should research also of the energy storage sector development of batteries and a lot that's really the other end of that right which we're going to be talking about later one of the question that people probably have is clear from solar panels driving past any issues there we don't think so the f a a issued an extensive report since there are many solar farms near airports and  less reflective than water and less reflective than vegetation so for the most part there's not a concern solar panels are designed to absorb light not to reflect it ok so typically not a huge issue right well i've learned a lot about solar farms and i hope you all in our audience have as well it's very helpful conversation for the residents of belmont to know what choices they have the former incinerator site thank you for there thank you now we're going to take a look at a video that helps explain energy storage stat utilities like stirling municipal like department purchase electric services like capacity and transmission from new england and their regional network service provider prices can fluctuate greatly depending on supply and demand in the regional market when electricity demand is at its peak prices for electricity and electric services are highest by installing a battery system a municipal utility like sterling can start to control how and when it buys electric services from the i s o this is important because reducing purchases during times of regional peak demand will save money for the utility and its rate payers stirling uses its battery system to store low cost electricity by charging the batteries with local solar power during the day or by purchasing cheap power from the grid during low demand times such as during the night then at times of regional peak demand sterling releases or discharges stored electricity from the batteries so it doesn't have to buy as much electricity when grid power is most expensive this reduces the cost of electricity for the rate payers and it also reduces sterling's transmission and capacity payments to the grid operator these payments are calculated based on the amount of power that sterling purchases during peak pricing periods for each month and each year reducing purchases of electricity during peak pricing saves hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for sterling's rate payers the stirling battery storage system is designed to power the town's police station and dispatch center for about two weeks in the event of a grid outage bore disaster with the local solar array the batteries can power the town's police station even longer by recharging the batteries with solar meaning stirling's st responders will be able to help people in need if a natural disaster knocks out the grid sterling is the st town to install a grid scale battery system in massachusetts but it won't be the last already other municipalities are planning similar projects energy storage is economical fast to install and it works i'm here now with chris roy the general manager of belmont like welcome chris  me thanks for coming i guess we're here today to discuss what could happen on the former incinerator site relative to belmont light or tell me a lot about what the idea here is relative to the solar  we've talked about a number of options and and so from a bell my life perspective we've been focusing on the solar post storage route not really  in finding renewable energy sources is that correct absolutely that's one of our big initiatives starting with the climate action plan i was appointed by town meeting and several years ago we've been gradually site and this project right now it is unlikely but it's possible still right st solar farm could be put there absolutely so generally speaking solar is certainly a viable option and you've done the studies there you figured out ok exact studies are done you know the models have been completed so we certainly know it's viable and what you were telling me before was that in a way it doesn't really matter what happens there so a firm could still you could still use that site to do solar exactly and that's the great thing about solar too is it's adaptable ok so you could put it other building there are different use and you could put as you see around town you can put solar on a roof or you know on the ground and some open space so so it doesn't have to be in all i see all the way and then one or the other bucket you could have two different uses when one of the uses a  solar and what can we say about what you would be doing there if you if you put a solar from there talk a little bit about this solar and the storage use shore so those two technologies complement each other so the  that renewable energy into the evening hours so that's where storage comes into play where you can start to use that energy at different times of the day and along with that comes other more complicated mechanisms from the energy being we can shift use to help reduce our costs during peak load times when electricity is the most expensive and and so the battery through storage allows us to harness the renewable energy and then use it when it's best for us and most favorable for us how does the how would the typical belmont resident benefit from that when they see a decrease in more efficiently we can offset those increases with or better so there's livery system you know there are certain fixed costs related to that but over time you're saying that really is going to keep price increases down and costs down exactly as you're able to save that energy and it's renewable and it's renewable in the ring a big part is being able to also incorporate more nobles in the portfolio we don't want to get too complicated because there's still a lot of discussion to be had and decisions be made but if belmont was able to do a public private partnership there we know it would require an amendment in the massachusetts legislature but what would that look like in terms of how much energy ray generally speaking maybe worn this two percent ok overall needs ok with that solar facility and with the development of technology to use for see that that one site is able to generate more electricity over over time you know with the investments in solar batteries and that sort of thing it's actually somewhat the opposite oh it was the panels age they were writing the less productive i see but as you replace the panels every time a new panel comes out right it's more efficient it harvest more of the sun right energy i think that's what it was good that you see the technology change so you can keep seeing that batteries batteries get better and better over to as well true but typical installations we find are twenty to thirty years ok all right and so unless there's a major malfunction the hope is to install it  let it live let you some day life the other option you discussed is if there wasn't a public private partnership would be an investment by the town to us put in a solar farm and that's of course another discussion to be had but there's a possibility so that is certainly a possibility the obviously the challenge there is if we have to build it ourselves then we're have to come up with a capital to right to buy the whole thing out right right and it's also our responsibility communities are done that i would have to say primarily with maybe a few exceptions that's primarily the mechanism because of this the contractual arrangements that you can get with these energy contracts  maintains the ability for municipalities to use their capital reserves for things that don't have those rights of arrangements like truck purchases or billing upgrades and things like that how do you combine these different sources of electricity i mean are there other sources that you're that we're using here belmont shore so basically given the you know the footprint of belmont and and the limited open space that we have we have to rely on the combination of and in town over a should that be the end result here coupled with the larger percentage of resources we procure from out of town so in that portfolio from out of town is hydroelectric wind and some solar and then a general bucket we refer to as grid power which is primarily gas ok and so what we're trying to do is transition though like the grid power those sources away from the fossil fuels ok and move them towards these concrete renewable contracts ok so this how does that fit into the that the general plan for the future for the my life and this is part of that plan exactly as part of the plan and currently we're looking at large trying to get large chunks of our portfolio more and more noble each year we have a power supply policy that dictates what percentage of our portfolio should be renewable so we have metrics and targets that we need to head and shaka we're currently in the process of developing a strategic plan which i think further make those targets more aggressive ok and so people might be thinking that there's some aspect of what vomit light does in terms of climate action goals and that sort of thing that  sort of what you're talking about exactly so to to take that picture out and zoom out a little bit further ok the climate action plan climate action goals are more than just electricity they look right sector really the only energy mechanism to be a one hundred percent on emitting from carbon emissions is electricity because you have solar options you have in doctrines and so really what we're trying to do is transition belmont light to be the technologies with a light as the foundation that's how i mean our broader climate goals because the electric you know portion of climate emissions you know is this is a small percentage than say transportation and heating but we have to create that foundation for folks to have an energy source that's in on a meeting and then we get everyone converted over to that energy so is there an average man have the answer the question but a plan to have a light overseer build charging stations for cars absolutely so we have a few stations and claflin we have one in our  think would be good for charging stations now is that something that can be i mean i'm just asking without any knowledge about this or that's something that is also a public private partnership possibility like can you work with a rd party vendor to build a because that really not does work that way that doesn't because the costs of management or minimal ok it's a minimal i mean a charging station installations typically around ten thousand ok but you know so we're not talking millions i guess it's a matter of putting one in and one in the interest is coming from the my light exactly ok so we're seeing more of that development or at least you're thinking more about that and trying to get other private businesses to think about that as well exactly of it and that way we can the more accessible the infrastructure is you know the more likely folks will convert to electric transportation great anything else you want to add in terms of what you're thinking about light overall plan i just think it's important stay tuned you know to support a lot of this electrification not only as a power supply that we're looking to you know move forward but it's also our rebate offerings so we realize a lot of this is helping the community manage their energy and also being able to access the technologies that are going to help us to call the shore goals and so or ability is to act as an advisor for those resources provide the rebates and incentives to help folks from adopt these technologies and then have our general power supply strategy service the basically ok well we'll stay tuned and we hope you'll come back when we get a little bit further down the road on the what happened to the former incinerator site and bring some benefit to beaumont residents so absolutely thank you thank you thank you for joining us today on this special edition of belmont journal and we'll see you again next time