City Council Delays Action on School Solar Projects

The electricity rate at Rogers High School is higher than all other public schools in the city and re­sults in about a $60,000 monthly utility bill on average, costing tax­payers roughly $700,000 per year.

The school’s electric heating system was planned as a combina­tion of electric and solar energy at the high school. However, when it came time to install the panels, the construction project ran millions of dollars over budget due to pan­demic driven inflation, and solar was scratched from the final plans.

The school building committee said it sought grants and other funding for solar panels but was unsuccessful, resulting in the high school exclusively using electric heat, which is generally more expensive than natural gas, solar panels and other heating methods.

The electricity rate at Rogers is 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, com­pared to 14 cents per kilowatt-hour at Pell Elementary School. City and school officials are not certain why.

“I don’t know how the rates were negotiated,” said School Com­mittee Member Beth Cullen. “I was shocked. This solar stuff should have been done years ago.”

According to City Manager Colin Kennedy, the city is negotiating the rate with Rhode Island Energy, and the rate is likely to decrease to 12.3 cents per kilowatt-hour as a result. Other schools in the district are under contract until 2028, at which point they can be renegoti­ated, Kennedy said.

The new school’s rate did not adopt the city’s rate for many public facilities.

The city is also looking into whether the wrong meter was in­stalled at the high school, which did not reflect the city rate, as well as utilizing net metering at the school to save $600,000 over 20 years.

Installing a solar array on the Rogers and Pell Elementary cam­puses could also cut costs, espe­cially if Rogers were built with solar in mind. Despite this, and a last-minute push by Vice Chair Lynn Ceglie, the city council took no action at a June 10 meeting on potential paths forward with solar at both schools.

No vote was taken, and coun­cilors criticized what they said were a lack of options, confusion regarding inconsistent figures pre­sented by the city administration and a tight timeline. Councilor Xay Khamsyvoravong said the matter should be referred to the Energy and Environment Commission, which could recommend an action for council approval in the future. Mayor Charles Holder said the city needs to gather more data before a decision is made.

The question of the schools’ utility costs comes as the council re­cently approved a $5.5 million plan to erase the school department deficit. School committee members and others argue the funding issue is systemic, driven by the city under funding the district over the past 15 years, and cannot be solved by one- time cash injections.

The funding plan’s fate remains in the air as the Rhode Island De­partment of Education recently communicated that the money envisioned in the plan would be included in the district’s annual budget, while the council condi­tioned the plan’s approval on the funding not being included in an­nual appropriations to the district, but rather a one-time payment.

As the district and city work through budgetary woes for a third consecutive year, installing solar at Rogers has been pitched by elected officials on both the city and school sides as an easy way to save a large amount of money. That prediction turned out to be false as councilors squabbled over plan details and failed to provide direction on the issue on June 10.

Solect Energy presented a plan that night to introduce solar arrays on the roofs of Rogers High and Pell Elementary. Since 2010, the company has developed over 950 solar projects for municipalities, schools, nonprofits and commer­cial customers. It designs, installs, constructs, monitors, maintains and manages all of its systems throughout southern New En­gland and is backed by the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns through the state’s PowerOptions energy procurement consulting program.

Jeff Steel represented Solect Energy and offered three options: direct ownership of the solar array, a lease agreement or a power pur­chase agreement. Of these three options, the city could own the infrastructure for the largest long- term value, though it would have to commit to the project and pro­duce down-payments by July 4 in order to qualify for an expiring fed­eral tax credit on municipal solar installations of at least 30 percent of the total project cost.

The other two options, a lease agreement and a power purchase agreement, would have deadlines of December 2027 to complete the project. The timeline caused Ken­nedy to call the July 4 deadline “a lost cause.”

Councilor David Carlin ques­tioned why the solution was not pursued sooner by the district or school committee and called the timeline to make any decisions too short. Khamsyvoravong was frus­trated at inconsistencies between the numbers presented by the city and Solect Energy. Carlin said the city should get its own estimates from other contractors and not simply rely on the League of Cities and Towns.

The solar supplier was asking the council to authorize a free detailed feasibility analysis and a non-binding letter of intent. Ceglie pushed for more information and a council vote, but there was no cor­responding council appetite.

“Wouldn’t it make sense to come before the council at the next meeting with at least a draft letter of intent to just explore the possibility?” she asked. “If we don’t have the answers, how do we make a decision? In the meantime, we’re spending $65,000 a month on electricity bills. What is wrong with just getting information that’s not going to cost the city anything?”

The blame for the utility situation at Rogers dominated the discussion.

“I would ask you to answer that,” Carlin responded. “You’ve been on the school building committee for four and a half years.”

Councilor Ellen Pinnock asked Kennedy if the council needs to craft a resolution to authorize the letter of intent. Kennedy said he would not be comfortable doing so without a council resolution.

“There’s a lot of information we still have to find,” Holder said. “Hopefully the administration will come up with a lot more informa­tion, so we have these answers in front of us when a letter of intent comes up, so we can make a better decision.”