State College Borough plans to switch to solar power energy with ... - The Daily Collegian Online

State College Borough plans to switch to solar power energy with Solar Power Purchasing Agreement | State College News | collegian.psu.edu

The State College Borough is currently working toward a partial switch to solar power energy through a Solar Power Purchasing Agreement with the Centre Region Council of Governments.

Current vice chair of the SPPA Working Group Peter Buck introduced the agreement to the council when he was on the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors.

The agreement is currently under legal review and is expected to go into effect late 2024, according to Buck.

“A power purchase agreement is a long-term electricity control act where an organization, like a government — or in our case — a group of governments, enter into at least a 15- or 20- or 25-year term with an energy developer,” Buck said.

The agreement allows its organizations “to purchase electricity from a solar plant in Pennsylvania,” Buck said.

Organizations are not purchasing solar panels rather the energy derived from them.

Solar energy is cheaper than traditional energy, Buck said, which is one of the agreement’s biggest benefits.

Every member of the council is entering into a power purchase agreement, but only those who purchase the additional renewable energy credit are in an SPPA, Buck said.

The key difference is the credit, which makes the purchase 100% carbon-free electricity.

“Whether you buy the REC or not, you’re changing the grid to solar,” Buck said, “which can offset or get rid of something else, like coal.”

Because solar energy is “clean power,” it doesn’t pose the health risks associated with traditional energy.

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The Centre Region Council of Governments recommends that the State College Borough commits to using 80% solar power energy to power borough facilities through the SPPA, maintained by the council.

“What [the SPPA] helps us do is meet greenhouse gas goals that we set out years ago,” Borough Council President Jesse Barlow said.

In 2019, the borough passed Resolution 1229, which commits the borough to develop and implement a plan to meet “net-zero greenhouse gas emission and 100% renewable energy” by 2050.

The 20% that’s not covered by the SPPA, Barlow said, will eventually turn to energy derived from solar panels located within the borough.

“Pugh Street Garage is, as you know, nearing the end of its useful life,” Barlow said. “[The borough is] going to replace it with a unit that will have solar panels on top, and we may do that with some other building that the borough owns.”

The solar panel project has not yet been solidified by the borough.

According to a borough council document sent from the Centre Region Council of Governments, purchasing solar power energy from a company is lower than traditional “grid” energy. However, putting solar panels up may have a more expensive upfront one-time cost.

Despite the higher cost, solar panels provide a long-term, cost-efficient solution, the document said.

Barlow said the council has been “all in on this” project, but there have been some opposers within the council.

“We found a few barriers within the Council of Governments and a couple of organizations that were going to enroll dropped out at the last minute,” Barlow said.

According to the SPPA Working Group Minutes from April 12, there were 15 organizations that were interested.

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However, Buck said the Centre Area Transportation Authority and Halfmoon Township have dropped out.

On the other hand, Barlow said Penn State’s Solar PPA, which was signed in 2019, was an influencing factor in the decision to switch energy sources.

Mike Prinkey, a senior energy program engineer at Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant, said he helped lead the university in its commitment to solar power energy.

The university purchases solar energy and the renewable energy credit from Lightsource BP, Prinkey said. The energy comes from three solar plants owned and maintained by the energy company.

“[The solar plants] were supposed to come online in 2020, which they did,” Prinkey said. “They’ve been up and running since then, and we’ve been buying 100% of the output from those three sites.”

Penn State’s team has interacted with entities beyond its local community, including “other universities” and a “group from the city of Philadelphia,” Prinkey said.

“I think seeing the success of [our Solar PPA], helped [the COG] feel more comfortable with it,” Meghan Hoskins, director of operations and partnerships at Penn State Sustainability Institute, said.

Hoskins was also on the university team that made the Solar PPA decisions. She’s currently a part of the group that monitors the agreement.

The university uses 25% of its “entire statewide electricity usage” to power Penn State University Park and its branch campuses, Hoskins said. The agreement locks Penn State into a 25-year contract with the solar developer.

“And it’s turned out really successful in that the electricity we buy from the Solar PPA is actually the cheapest electricity that we could buy now.”

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