Resident pushing town for solar panels

During public comments, at the Monday, Oct. 7, Bloomfield Council meeting, Ted Glick, a founding member of the Bloomfield Citizens Solar Campaign, asked the governing body the status of his group’s advocacy for the installation of solar panels at two municipal properties.

Responding, Mayor Ted Gamble said he hoped to have an answer by the next council meeting. Glick politely noted that he had heard that before.

The following day, Glick told this newspaper that, although he is holding out hope, it has been more than a year that the council had tentatively agreed to move forward with solar panels on township properties at two locations: the parking lot behind the municipal building where a solar canopy would be erected, and a garage roof at the train station.

“It’s a good garage roof,” Glick said, “and the town has control of the property. It hired Talva Energy to do an assessment of properties. I believe it was Talva which said the garage roof was a viable place.”

The issue holding up installation is money.

“There are two major ways to move forward for a town,” Glick said. “One is a lease or the power of purchase. This agreement requires little up-front money. There are state and federal sources of funding to install solar panels. These are basically tax credits. But for that to work, there has to be enough installation area to make it viable.”

Glick said neither location had enough area to effectively reduce the cost of installation, so a power of purchase agreement was not possible. The other way forward was for Bloomfield to come up with the money itself.

But property owned by the school district was another matter, Glick said. Two assessments, one by the state and the other by Greener by Design, an environmental assessment company, determined there were plenty of viable school roofs. According to Glick, the state said the school district had 11 viable roofs while Greener by Design said there were 10.

“The schools can definitely do a power of purchase,” he said.

Glick outlined the process. First, get bids for the work. Then choose a company. Finally, sign the contract.

“The solar company buys the panels, installs and maintains them for the period of the contract, usually 15 years,” he said. “Because of the number of school buildings, it’s profitable for the company because the school district is paying them a fee for the life of the contract.

“But most important to remember,” Glick continued, “is that sunlight is free. It’s other forms of energy that cost money. Solar energy has taken off world wide as the technology has improved and become cheaper. Bloomfield must do its part to move away from polluting fossil fuels.”

He said the township government has been struggling to determine if they should make the investment because the town will need to be the owner and buy, install and maintain the panels.

“The investment might be a million dollars,” he said. “From my knowledge, in seven to 10 years, you’re saving money. The major investment is made up by the savings.

It’s been mystifying why the school board has been resistant. Nature by Design did an assessment that over a 15-year period, there would be a savings of almost $3 million.”

Nonetheless, a number of Bloomfield houses of worship have taken the lead in going solar.

The Bloomfield Citizens Solar Campaign was founded in 2016 and started small. Its original members were Jane Califf, Michael Palmieri, Bud Feder and Diane Michaels. Glick said there was a learning curve which the group overcame.

Solar energy was crucial, he said, because it would help to mitigate the effects of climate change which is causing major forest fires, drought conditions and famine, rising sea levels and record hurricanes. It even affects education, he said. How can a kid go to school when the roads are washed out or study when there is no electricity? Closer to home, what about the recent flooding in Bloomfield?

“That was certainly related to weather change,” he said.

  bloomfield, solar