ROCKLAND — In a small, windowless room in the Rockland Public Library basement — painted with murals of Frodo and Gandalf — pragmatic discussions got underway this summer as a small municipal committee talked about powering city buildings and infrastructure by the sun.

Since 2007, the all-volunteer Rockland Energy Committee has been working to reduce what the city spends on lighting, heating and cooling publicly-owned buildings. They are helping the city switch street light bulbs to LEDs, estimating an annual savings of $65,000 in that one expense alone.

They also worked with staff of Rockland Public Library, parts of which were built circa 1904, to initiate efficiency upgrades (insulation, sealing and LED lighting). The changes have reduced the building’s electricity and oil costs by approximately 45 percent. 

And they have advised property owners on making their drafty New England homes and downtown historic buildings more energy efficient so that “energy is a smaller part of home costs, and a smaller part of doing business,” said committee Chairman Larry Pritchett.

All the while, the committee has kept abreast of what other municipalities are doing to reduce energy costs. From Copenhagen to Burlington, Vt., from Bath to Freeport, towns and cities are incrementally reducing power use and building stronger energy self sufficiency. When a storm hits and the grid goes dark, no longer are all municipalities unilaterally darkened.

“The harder question — when you have figured out how to minimize power use — is, where does the power come from?” said Pritchett, who also sits on the City Council. “Brooks [Winner, who also sits on the Energy Committee] and I have said, the cheapest and least damaging energy is the energy you don’t have to buy.” 

That is an emerging issue in Rockland, as a proposal by one company to buy city-owned property and establish a gas-fired cogeneration plant there is under review, and another company explores whether to construct a community solar farm.

The Energy Committee members — Pritchett, Tony Coyne, Deb Donnelly, Suzanne MacDonald, Brooks Winner and Bill Pearce — have become, be default, information energy educators, and now researchers, for the city. It helps that several members have science or technical backgrounds.

As natural gas muscles its way into coastal Maine, as wind turbines become more common, and as the price of solar energy panels decreases around the world — and the cost of installation decreases as more contractors become familiar with the hardware — the economics are changing.

“Would power generated at a facility in Rockland and distributed to users in Rockland work here?” Pritchett said. “I don’t know. It’s an important question and when you have three Excel geeks on the committee, we would not recommend anything that doesn’t work, or hasn’t been completely vetted by the committee.”

Municipalities are diversifying their power sources; Burlington, Vt., for example, gets its electricity from wood, solar, hydro, other renewables, along with gas and oil. Other cities are setting up solar arrays on top of capped landfills. Some are piping converted methane in those landfills to heat city halls and schools.

In Freeport, the town is joining with private solar energy companies to help property owners establish a solar energy system there. Last week, Revision Energy, of Liberty, was in Rockland to talk with the community about possibly siting a 350 kilowatt solar electric array with more than 1,100 solar panels on a site near Rockland’s South End. 

That system, designed by ReVision Energy, could produce more than 400,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually for up to nine shareholders, the company said. 

At the Rockland Energy Committee’s July 28 meeting, the focus was on how Rockland might capture energy from the sun. While there was some discussion about residential photovoltaic systems, the conversation steered toward powering public buildings and wastewater treatment with solar technology.

There are cascading logistics to consider, and the committee is methodically breaking them down: What is the city’s current energy demand? What municipally-owned sites might be suitable for an array of solar panels? How much acreage is required? Would the city hook into the grid or keep its power production as stand-alone systems? 

And, what costs does solar carry?

The committee emphasizes that it is merely compiling information for a productive discussion, and in a July memo to the Council, Pritchett wrote: “Given the heightened interest in energy related questions, I wanted Council members to be aware of this. If you get any questions, please stress this is at the very basic info gathering stage and direct questions to Brooks or me on the Energy Committee or to Audra.” 

Rockland’s potential sites for solar arrays

Currently, Rockland has budgeted $466,184 this fiscal year to keep its lights on in municipal buildings, and treat wastewater.

“In short, it takes the equivalent of all of the city's portion of property tax revenue from approximately 282 median priced homes to pay the city's annual electric bill,” Pritchettt said.

The Energy Committee has considered roof mounted solar options, “but most of the roofs on City buildings cannot support the added weight of PV or have the wrong orientation or both. And the amount of electricity used by the city is out of scale to the total roof space on all city buildings,” wrote Pritchett, in his Council memo.

But solar arrays on the ground have dropped in price, and the Environmental Protection Agency agreed last year to allow photovoltaic systems on capped landfills and brownfield sites.

The Energy Committee has estimated Rockland would need 24 acres of sunny land to power up the city infrastructure.

Possible sites include the city landfill’s Quarry 2 South, which has been capped. That quarry was where Rockland formerly dumped municipal solid waste prior to the construction of the transfer station. That would provide approximately four acres of land.

There are 5.23 acres of land where North School sat, which could be developed, and still leave space for trails and parking, the committee said.

And, there is Snow Marine Park and JC Park, both of which have “unused or little-used portions” that might be considered for solar panels.

The Energy Committee and Community Development Director Audra Bell-Cantor continue to collect information for the City Council.

“To have a productive discussion, the city needs to know which sites are technically viable, the approximate costs of developing PV at a site, the energy cost savings over time, and the community/environment benefits,” said Pritchett, in his memo to the Council. “To get the lowest possible KWH rate for the City, a key aspect of a solar project is developing a "Lease to Own/Power Purchase" agreement that would maximize federal New Markets, Solar Renewable Energy, and Accelerated Depreciation tax credits along with regional/midcoast grid expansion alternative incentives.

“City staff and committee members are cognizant that council (and the community) may prefer other uses for some of these areas. Since the UU Fellowship is the one party that has expressed interest in parts of the North School site in the past, the City is reaching out to staff and members about this solar info gathering process.”

Next steps

How Rockland proceeds with its consideration of solar depends, in large part, on the continued research the Energy Committee conducts.

“We want to see if the physical and technical pieces for large scale solar will work here,” said Pritchett, conceptualizing phases of development — “a third to half of city government as a starting point.”

 The committee meets again Aug. 19, at 4 p.m. at City Hall, immediately preceding the public information meeting it is convening to talk about community energy questions.

The forum, which begins at 6:30 p.m., is a continuation of talks begun last winter when a proposal appeared before the city to site a natural gas-fired energy production facility on city-owned property.

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Rockland's energy conversation continues: Aug. 19 forum on gas-fired heat and power plants

Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657