Somers Gets Greener

The town of Somers is already pretty green, but soon, it will be even greener.

It has recently been announced that Somers will be receiving $387,200 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants to fund two solar energy projects.

Somers already has solar panels on the .

“This is really good,” Lisa Pellegrini said. “It’s been one of my goals to try to implement some alternative energy programs because I really see that as the future for the town. It’s an opportunity to save. So it’s a benefit to the taxpayers. And solar is free because there’s no waste to it.”   

The projects include the installation of 2,500 solar panels for a 175,000 watts/hr solar power system on the roof and the installation of approximately 850 solar panels for a 60,000 watts/hr solar power system on the roof of the garage.   

The systems will provide significant savings for the town, including an estimated savings of $195,830 over a 10-year period for the school and over $85,000 in savings over a 10-year period for the DPW garage.

The system lifespan is over 20 years and the panels will be maintained for 20 years at no cost to the town by DBS Energy, who is installing the system.

The town will also pay nothing to install the solar energy systems.

“It’s wonderful when you get 100 percent of the costs paid for,” Pellegrini said. “Not one dime is being paid for by a Somers taxpayer and to know that it’s part of President Obama’s American reinvestment and recovery act is an honor, an absolute honor to receive that. We’re excited about it.”

Construction begins this summer – probably in June – and the systems will be operational by September 2011.

Pellegrini said that this will be one of the largest systems installed by a municipality in the State of Connecticut and that approval for this project was received a month earlier then expected.   

It has recently been discovered that the panels will cover more of the load at the DPW garage than originally believed.

“What’s really exciting about the DPW building, the garage, is that we recently installed energy efficient lighting,” Pellegrini said. “Before that was done, we thought these solar panels would cover about 80 percent of the load. Now, it’s dropping (the load) because of the energy efficient lights so it’s going to cover almost 100 percent of the energy load. That’s going to be fantastic.”

With these panels there’s no need to be concerned about the system working if there are clouds.

“The technology has evolved since the 1970s,” Pellegrini said. “Even though there might not be total sun every single day, the panels that they have can generate energy on cloudy days so it’s wonderful. We don’t need to be in Arizona where it’s pure sun. Technology has evolved so it’s great.”

Pellegini says that there are other funding opportunities that will be coming available and Somers is aggressively going to go after that funding.

“That will come from both the department of agriculture as well as some clean energy funds,” she said. “It’s exciting, it’s a good time. Grant opportunities are depleting, however money for alternative energy is out there and it’s available. You just have to have a game plan for it and we’ve been lucky enough to do that work already so we have a couple of opportunities that we want to go do.”

So look for more green technology to come for the town of Somers.