by: Mason Gentry
On Jan. 17, the Parkland Board of Trustees approved a 25-year contract with Sol-Systems LLC, which is based in Washington D.C., to install eight acres of solar panels on the campus.
According to Travis Stansel from the Illinois Public Media, the documents from the meeting did not include a total cost for the project but did say that Sol-Systems offered the lowest cost out of 12 bidders.
According to Mimi Nguyen, the Sustainability Coordinator at Parkland, the negotiated project is called a solar power purchase agreement (PPA). In this agreement, Parkland is the buyer of the energy and Sol-Systems is the seller.
After the 25 years have passed, the college will have the option to extend the contract for two terms, both at five years each. So, the contract with Sol-Systems may last for 35 years. The 25-year timeframe begins once the solar panels are installed and functioning.
The way that the PPA was negotiated allows Parkland College to get the solar array for much cheaper. Nguyen said that, “We let them install the equipment on our property and then that offsets our cost from buying the electricity because we get it at a fixed rate for lower than what we would get without solar. And then they can get the profit from the sales and also they benefit from incentives and tax benefits from every solar panel.”
In other words, the deal allows Parkland to save money on electricity while Sol-Systems is granted tax benefits and sales revenue from the deal. According to a News-Gazette article, the solar farm will provide between 10-15% of the energy that Parkland uses.
Parkland is paying none of the upfront or operational costs and will save the about $25,000 to $30,000 a year when the panels are operating fully.
Nguyen said that “the amount of energy that is guaranteed to be provided by our solar panels starts at 2,711,500 [kilowatt hours by year one] and ends with 2,404,161 kWh.”
The units quoted above are kilowatt hours. This unit is used to measure the number of kilowatts sustained for one hour. Parkland College will be able to sustain almost 2.5 million kilowatts per hour by the time that the solar array is fully operational.
“The fully functioning solar panels could provide a learning opportunity for students in the future”
The panels will be installed on the north-west corner of campus. According to Nguyen, the contractors have already begun to excavate and clear land for the eight-acre array of panels.
The contractor will be on campus to speak with the physical plant on Thursday, Feb. 27 to update Parkland on the progress and installation process.
Nguyen said that the solar panels are supposed to be fully functioning by the end of May 2020. The fully functioning solar panels could provide a learning opportunity for students in the future.
“Everything—like battery, inverter, charge controller—everything that goes into that array has to be fully in operation for it to actually start generating power,” Nguyen said. For that reason, the college will not reap the benefits of the new array until the entire installation is complete.
For more information about Parkland’s upcoming solar field, please visit the Prospectus website.
