Saturday, April 20, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
By CRAIG FREILICH CANTON -- Construction of a municipal solar farm can start now that the payment National Grid wants for connection to their grid is back within the amount the village budgeted for …
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By CRAIG FREILICH
CANTON -- Construction of a municipal solar farm can start now that the payment National Grid wants for connection to their grid is back within the amount the village budgeted for it.
The village and town expect to save about $2 million over the next 20 years with electricity generated by numerous panels at the solar array, to be built at the old Ideal Drive-In Theater property, about a mile south of Main Street on Gouverneur Street, U.S. Rt. 11.
“National Grid has redone its interconnection study and revisited their numbers,” Mayor Mike Dalton said after the Board of Trustees meeting on Nov. 21.
He said the first price the company quoted was well beyond what the village had expected and budgeted for.
“There’s been a history of National Grid coming in way over budget” in other connection contracts, Dalton said he had heard.
“But they brought that back to within our budgeted amount,” he said. Dalton said he believed that National Grid is now responding to reaction from them and other sponsors of projects requiring interconnects with the company.
“The interconnection payment will be made shortly, and we’ll have the go-ahead for construction,” Dalton said.
The design for the project is set, Dalton said, “and the schedule will be set once the payment is made.”
The array, rated at just under one megawatt of output, will be built by Solar City, a California-based solar company with offices all over the country.
The 16-acre site was bought for $180,000 and has been annexed into the village.
The power will feed National Grid’s lines through an interconnect at the site that will meet the specifications of the electric power distribution company.
The village and town will get credits on their electric bills for the power they send to the grid.
Considering the electricity used by the recreation center on Lincoln Street, the municipal building downtown, the sewage and water facilities, the firehouse, and streetlights, among other municipal energy users, Dalton says he expects the taxpayers will be saved a considerable amount of money.
