What do voters think about authorizing Stowe Electric to apply for a loan of up to $3.5 million to pay for a 1-megawatt solar farm in Nebraska Valley?
The utility will find out tonight. Today, residents are voting on whether to authorize Stowe Electric to pursue zero-interest loans within the next couple of business days. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Akeley Memorial Building, 67 Main St.
With stringent renewable energy mandates passed this legislative session, utilities could end up paying penalties, which could raise rates even without investing in small solar, wind, cow-power, or hydro projects.
“Doing nothing is the easiest thing to do, but it’s also the most expensive,” said Kevin Weishaar, Stowe Electric’s controller.
The Vermont Economic Development Authority has established a June 3 deadline to apply for Clean Renewable Energy Bonds from the federal government. If Stowe wants a chance at any of that money, it has to move quickly. Stowe Electric announced the project a month and a half ago, scheduled it for an early May vote despite some reservations from town officials, scrapped that vote because the process was not thorough enough, and rescheduled the vote for today.
If voters say yes, the utility still needs Public Service Board approval. Then the project will have to come back to Stowe resident for a confirmation vote on the project as a whole. And then it will have to go through an extensive bidding process.
Not everyone is happy with how fast the process has gone.
“You’re saying you just had to pick a number, so you picked $3.5 million,” Doug White, who chairs the Stowe Development Review Board, said at last week’s meeting.
Chad Ferrell, CEO of Encore Redevelopment, which has done the pre-consulting work on the project, said that number is likely high, but it is an educated, conservative guess at how much it would cost. And everyone involved with the project said that number is on the high end, which is why the bond amount Stowe residents are voting on today is a sum “up to” $3.5 million.
“We didn’t want to go back (to voters) and say, ‘We came up $500,000 short,’” Ferrell said.
Here are some projected numbers on the project:
• Project life: 30 years, although it could last 40-plus.
• Average power output: 1.4 million kilowatt-hours.
• Property lease: $550,000 total.
• Projected energy and transmission cost savings: $138,000 a year.
• Other costs: $22,000 per year.
• Total saved with zero-interest loan: $1.5 million in interest.
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