Long Branch Council to Discuss Possibility of Adding Solar Panels to City

The Long Branch Council will discuss the possibility of adding solar panels to several city-owned buildings during an executive session meeting on Thursday night at city hall. 

Long Branch City Clerk Kathy Schmelz said the meeting will be at 6 p.m. and that the council will adopt a resolution to go into executive session to discuss solar panels.

City Planner Pratap Talwar, of Thompson Design, discussed solar panels with the council during its meeting on Feb. 22, but the council took no action on the matter.

"We will look at the costs, discuss it and revisit at the next meeting," Mayor Adam Schneider said. 

However, the council did not discuss solar panels until the last meeting in May when they were discussed during executive session.

Talwar explained that some feasible sites for the solar panels could be city hall, schools, fire houses, the Long Branch Sewerage and Housing Authorities, public works and "private buildings with large footprints."

"This is a great advantage for someone to aggregate many small sites together in Long Branch," Talwar said. 

“The proposal is to audit the potential solar sites of the city and to calculate what the power generation potential is,” Talwar continued. “Most of the sites considered [are] in public hands, [but we are] looking at the possibility [that] private buildings [also] would be appropriate.”

At the meeting in February, Talwar explained that Long Branch could possibly get a 1603 tax grant from the U.S. Department of Treasury that would cover 30 percent of the total costs, if the city acted quickly and put a plan together. 

He said the city would have to commit the money for the project by the end of the year.

"It's a very short timeline, but it is low-hanging fruit," Talwar said.

He said that energy costs are increasing every year, but that the project could save between $1 and $3 million over a 25-year period per megawatt of solar energy produced. 

"We've been working on a reasonable way to save money with power in the city," Talwar said. "This is a good way to reduce significant costs that are recurring every year."

At the last council meeting, there was a tentative solar panel ordinance that was tabled by the council. The ordinance would appropriate $250,ooo, of which $238,000 would be bonded, to help finance the preliminary costs of a solar energy project for the city.