By Shelley Ridenbour | Casa Grande Dispatch
The installation of solar-covered parking structures at five city facilities is moving along quickly, Deputy City Manager Larry Rains said.
The support structures and solar panels are in place and operating at the North Operations Center on North Lear Avenue. The system at Grande Sports World is pegged for completion any day.
Two structures are in place, but the electrical components not yet connected, at the Administrative Services Building, next door to City Hall, Rains said. And, in the next few weeks the structure at City Hall is to be erected. It will be a few weeks before the electrical connections at, and next door to, City Hall will be finished, he said.
Next up is installation of the structures at the Public Safety Facility on East Val Vista Boulevard.
Last on the project list is installation at the Main Library and the Police Department dispatch center on Marshall Avenue.
Those two projects won’t start until fall, Rains said, to coincide with the remodeling projects planned at the library and dispatch center.
The city estimates that when the solar panels at all five buildings are operating, it will save about $250,000 a year on its electric bill.
The price tag for the project is $3.3 million, paid for by savings on electric bills and incentives provided by Arizona Public Service Co.
Casa Grande is one of the first cities in the United States to purchase a solar system through the guaranteed energy cost savings program with Ameresco. The city signed an 18-year agreement with Ameresco for the project.
Ameresco is providing the city with a written guarantee that the solar structures will reduce the city’s energy consumption and result in cost savings. If that
scenario doesn’t hold true, Ameresco must reimburse the city for any shortfall.
The parking structures include more than 3,400 photovoltaic panels expected to help the city lower its paid electricity usage by more than 1 million kilowatt hours annually.
Some parking interruptions accompany work at each building, city officials have said. But, in the end, no parking spots will be lost at any building.
If you’d like to discuss energy issues, contact Court Rich, Co-Chair of Rose Law Group’s Renewable Energy Department at crich@roselawgroup.com
